E 207 

.L2L22 



Tilii;!!!-^;!:!:;;.::..;;' 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



DDDD35bnEA 



ft 



A^ .Mo *-A 



+* ' 



* *ziBll : * ! 










WHf=^tt ° 










°^ 


.0 *> \, 


.% 









* • . • <0 



*o 












?« 






£ 









> , » 















^ 






-o^ 



< > , - 

A tr» 










>, 












SS • 

























" A V «^ 



/ V .*m*?\ 




! 







47 




<\ *<t: 






<r , 



,0* c' 1 '*' **b, 



>°**v v 





^'XekS X-Jts&X *'*&>* 










...» A 














V- 



•o v , 






% ♦..o" a0 ^ *.,, a? ^ 



>9 



1 * A V ^ 



^ *••»• ^ <* •^T* ACT ^ 





«*\- 




"o? 











> v *i^Lr* «>* a0^ »'*"' > 




*„ Wf^' 



.o*' T %,t .0*"' '^.^ J 



1 !' 









1^». . \ • • • 



w|v 



^ 



4* 



"Lafayette, nous voila!" 



Lafayette Day Exercises 

In commemoration of the double 
Anniversary of the birth of 
Lafayette and the battle of 
the Marne : September 6th, 1917 






By the courtesv of the American Scenic and His- 
toric PreservatioiTSociety the contents of this booklet 
insofar as they relate to the ceremonies which took 
place at the City Hall in New York will be included in 
its next annual report which, upon transmission to the 
Legislature of the State of New York, is regularly 
printed as a state document. 



i3,V L UUC:. * 

The White House. 



LAFAYETTE DAY 
NATIONAL COMMITTEE 



Charles W. Eliot 
Moorfield Storey- 
Caspar F. Goodrich 
Judson Harmon 
Myron T. Herrick 
Joseph H. Choate * 
George Haven Putnam 
George W. Wickersham 
* deceased 



Theodore Roosevelt 

Henry van Dyke 

William D. Guthrie 

Henry Watterson 

Charles J. Bonaparte 

( !hiarles P. Johnson 

W. R. Hodges 

Chas. Stewart Davison, Hon Sec'y. 

Maurice Leon, Recording Sec'y. 



GO Wall Street, New York 



Officers and Special Committees of 
Lafayette Day Exercises held in New York 

In commemoration of the double anniversary of the birth of 

Lafayette and the Battle of the Marne 

September 6th, 1917 



Honorary Presidents: 
Theodore Roosevelt Elihu Root 

Hon. Willard Bartlett, Chairman 



Frank A. Vanderlip, 

Honorary Chairman 
Maurice Leon, Acting Chairman 
Peter T. Barlow 
William Curtis Demorest 



George T. Wilson, Chairman 
George W. Burleigh, 

Vice-Chairman 
C. C. Burlingham 
Henry Ives Cobb 
William Curtis Demorest 



Executive Committee 
Charles DeRahm 
Job E. Hedges 
J. Pierpont Morgan 
Carlisle Norwood 
John yuinn 

Arrangements Committee 
Lafayette B. Gleason 
Henry Winthrop Hardon 
J. Montgomery Hare 
Maurice Leon 
Robert C. Morris 
Lewis H. Pounds 



James Stillman 



Charles Howland Russell 
Isaac N. Seligman 
George T. Wilson 



Ogden Reid 
Theodore Rousseau 
Nelson S. Spencer 
Alfred T. White 



Committee on Decoration of Buildings & Monuments 

™E.iH«^°" Elis~ suss.— 

Committee in charge of Exercises at Lafayette Monument 
Union Square, New York 



Lawrence F. Abbott, Chairman 
Edward Harding, Vice-Chairman 
James M. Beck 
Edward C. Bridgman 
Henry Ives Cobb 
E. Mora Davison 



Charles A. Downer 
Lawrence Godkin 
Hon. Samuel Greenbaum 
Hon. Learned Hand 
Richard M. Hurd 
C. Grant LaFarge 



Langdon P. Marvin 
Alexander T. Mason 
George Haven Putnam 
Charles Scribner 
William G. Willcox 



Committee in charge of Exercises at Lafayette Memorial 
Prospect Park, Brooklyn 
Hon. Lewis H Pounds, Chairman Fred W. Atkinson Alfred T Whit,. 

Frederick Boyd Stevenson, Hon. William M. Calder Wh,te 

Vice Chairman E. Hubert Litchfield 



William D. Guthrie, Chairman 
John Jay Chapman, 

Vice-Chairman 
John G. Agar 
Richard Aldrich 
S. R. Bertron 
Gen. Oliver B. Bridgman 
Franklin Q. Brown 
George W. Burlelgn 
W. A. Day 
Carroll Dunham 
Neweomb Carlton 



Reception Committee 
R. Fulton Cutting 
Abram I. Elkus 
Madison Grant 
Henry G. Gray 
Edward Harding 
Lucien Jouvaud 
Boudinot Keith 
Maurice Leon 
George L. LeBIanc 
Carlisle Norwood 
Stephen H. Olin 
Robert Olyphant 



Finance Committee 

^S" 84 ! M e l m K nt l Ch ? irman Frederick H. Allen 

Samuel McRoberts, Vice Chairman T. W. Lamont 



Dr. Leighton Parks 
H. Hobart Porter 
John Quinn 

Charles Howland Russell 
Herbert L. S'atterlee 
Frank H. Simonds 
R- A. C. Smith 
Charles A. Stone 
George T. Wilson 
John M. Woolsey 



Isaac N. Seligman 



Mrs. Atherton, Chairman 



Ladie's Section of Committee 

Mrs. Frank A. Vanderlip, Vice-Chairman 
Chas. Stewart Davison, Honorary Secretary 
William Redmond Cross, Treasurer 
Mauricb Leon, Recording Secretary 
60 Wall Street, New York 



Lawrence F. Abbott 
John G. Agar 
Richard Aldrich 
Courtland V. Anable 
Frederick H. Allen 
Francis L. Appleton 
Fred. W. Atkinson 
Grosvenor Atterbury 
Gorham Bacon 
Robert Bacon 
Peter T. Barlow 
Herbert Barry 
Philip Golden Bartlett 
Willard Bartlett 
George Gordon Battle 
Edmund L. Baylies 
Henry Willard Bean 
James M. Beck 
Charles K. Beekman 
Lucius Hart Been 
Maj. Gen. Bell 
August Belmont 
S. Reading Bertron 
Dr. Herman Bigga 
Joseph B. Bishop 
George Blagden 
C. N. Bliss, Jr. 
Francke H. Bosworth 
John W. Brannan 
Edward C. Bridgman 
Gen. Oliver B. Bridgman 
Franklin Q. Brown 
George W. Burleigh 
Charles C. Burlingham 
Edward Burnett 
Charles Butler 
Nicholas Murray Butler 
James Byrne 
William M. Calder 
William C. Cammann 
Newcomb Carlton 
Oscar R. Cauchois 
William M. Chadbourne 
John Jay Chapman 
Joseph H. Choate, Jr. 
T. Ludlow Chrystie 
J. Herbert Clairborne 
Courtlandt C. Clarke 
R. Floyd Clarke 
Henrv Ives Cobb 
William A. Coffin 
Bainbridge Colby 
Henry D. Cooper 
Joseph P. Cotton 
Paul D. Cravath 
John D. Crimmins 
George Cromwell 
William Redmond Cross 
F. Cunliffe-Owen 
William E. Curtis 
R. Fulton Cutting 
Victor W. Cutting; 
Howland Davis 
^has. Stewart Davison 
5. Mora Davison 
V. A. Day 
Robert W. DeForest 
j. C. Deming 
Villiam Curtis Demorest 
i\ S. Grand d'Hauteville 
Charles DeRham 
Cleveland H. Dodge 



LAFAYETTE DAY CITIZENS' COMMITTEE OF NEW YORK 



Hon. Frank L. Dowling 

Charles A. Downer 

William Kinnicutt Draper 

Henry Russell Drowne 

Carroll Dunham 

Hon. Abram I. Elkus 

Ellsworth Eliot, Jr. 

Grenville T. Emmet 

Allen W. Evarts 

V\ iliiam Bailey Faxon 

Hamilton Fish 

John Flanagan 

John H. Finiey 

Frederick DePeyster Foster 

Austen G. Fox 

Amos Tuck French 

Algernon S. Frissell 

Frederick Gallatin 

Wumner Gerard 

Franklin H. Giddingg 

Cass Gilbert 

Lafayette B. Gleason 

Lawrence Godkin 

Harold Godwin 

Richard Gottheil 

Madison Grant 

Rev. Dr. Percy Stickney Grant 

Henry G. Gray 

Hon. Samuel Greenbaum 

Right Rev. Dr. David H. Greer 

Lawrence Greer 

Geo. Bird Grinnel] 

William D. Guthrie 

Winston H. Hagen 

Montgomery Hallowell 

Learned Hand 

Edward Harding 

Henry Winthrop Hardon 

J. Montgomery Hare 

Robert Lewis Harrison 

George Harvey 

McDougall Hawkes 

Alan R. Hawley 

Job E. Hedges 

Alexander J. Hemphill 

A. Barton Hepburn 

Chas. R. Hickox 

Ripley Hitchcock 

Hon. George C. Holt 

Henry Holt 

Brig. Gen. Eli D. Hoyle, U. S. A. 

Gerald Livingston Hoyt 

Charles E. Hughes 

Andrew Beaumont Humphrey 

Richard M. Hurd 

Robert Underwood Johnson 

Francis C. Jones 

Lucien Jouvaud 

Boudinot Keith 

James E. Kelly 

Howard Thayer Kingsbury 

Maurice Kozmynski 

E. Henry Lacombe 

Col. William Whitehead Ladd 

C. Grant LaFarge 

C. Grand LaFarge 

Thomas W. Lamont 

M. B. Leahy 

George L. Leblanc 

Maurice Leon 

E. Hubert Litchfield 

DeWitt M. Lockman 



Will H. Low 
James B. Ludlow 
Wallace Mac Farlane 
George Barr McCutcheon 
Samuel Mc Roberts 
Clarence H. Mackay 
H. S'nowden Marshall 
Henry Rutgers Marshall 
E. S. Martin 
Langdon Parker Marvin 
Alexander T. Mason 
John G. Milburn 
Charles R. Miller 
Robert Shaw Minturn 
Edward P. Mitchell 
Hon. John Purroy Mitchel 
Edward C. Moen 
Victor Morawetz 
J. Pierpont Morgan 
Robert C. Morris 
Charles C. Nadal 
Louis W. Noel 
Carlisle Norwood 
Walter G. Oakman 
Stephen H. Olin 
Robert Olyphant 
Talbot Olyphant 
Hon. Samuel H. Ordway 
E. H. Outerbridge 
Alton B. Parker 
William Parkin 
Rev. Dr. Leighton Parks 
Samuel Parrish 
William Barclay Parsons 
George Foster Peabody 
Edward H. Peaslee 
Hon. Francis K. Pendleton 
Rev. Dr. John P. Peters 
John B. Pine 
George A. Plimpton 
H. Hobart Porter 
Hon. Levis H. Pounds 
William A. Prendergast 
William A. Purrington 
George Haven Putnam 
John Quinn 
William C. Redfield 
Ogden Reid 
Theodore Roosevelt 
Talbot Root 
Theodore Rousseau 
Charles Howland Russell 
Herbert L. Satterlee 
William Jay Schieffelin 
Mortimer L. Schiff 
Charles Scribner 
Isaac N. S'eligman 
Lawrence E. Sexton 
Porter Clyde Shannon 
Albert Shaw 

Hon. Clarence J. Shearn 
Edward W. Sheldon 
P. Tecumseh Sherman 
Rev. Dr. Joseph Silverman 
Frank H. Simonds 
John W. Simpson 
William Sloane 
R. A. C. Smith 
Nelson S. Spencer 
Francis Lynde Stetson 
John A. Stevens 
Frederick Boyd Stevenson 



John A. Stewart 

James Stillman 

Charles A. Stone 

Willard D. Straight 

Oscar S. Straus 

Charles H. Strong 

Howard Taylor 

Augustus Thomas 

Col. Robt. M. Thompson 

Dr. William Oilman Thompsc 

J. Kennedy Tod 

Edward Trenchard 

Allen Tucker 

Bayard Tuckerman 

Eliot Tuckerman 

Paul Tuckerman 

Rear Admiral N. R. Usher 

Guy Van Amringe 

William B. Van Ingen 

John C. Van Dyke 

William Van Ingen 

Frank A. Vanderlip 

William R. Warren 

J. Alden Weir 

T. Tileston Wells 

Alfred T. White 

George W. Wickersham 

William G. Wilcox 

George T. Wilson 

Louis Wiley 

Beekman Winthrop 

Dr. Stephen S'. Wise 

Arthur King Wood 

Arthur Woods 

John M. Woolsey 

James A. Wright 

Rev. T. Wucher 

George Zabriskie 

Mrs. Frederick H. Allen 

Mrs. Gertrude Atherton 

Mrs. Robert Bacon 

Mrs. Sanford Bissell 

Miss Helen Van'ck Boswell 

Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt 

Mrs. Wm. Astor Chandler 

Mrs. Charles H. Ditson 

Mrs. Carroll Dunham 

Miss Theodora Dunham 

Mrs. Hamilton R. Fairfax 

Mrs. Herbert L. Griggs 

Mrs. E. H. Harriman 

Mrs. J. Borden Harriman 

Miss Winifred Holt 

Miss Luisita A. Leland 

Mrs. Henry P. Loomis 

Mrs. Walter Maynard 

Mrs. Frederick Nathan 

Mrs. Ethelbert Nevin 

Mrs. Douglas Robinson 

Mrs. Livingston Row Schuyler 

Mrs. Arthur H. Scribner 

Mrs. Louis Livingston Seaman 

Mrs. William G. Slade 

Mrs. George Wilson Smith 

Miss Robinson Smith 

Miss Carita Spencer 

Mrs. Frank A. Vanderlip 

Mrs. Whitney Warren 

Mrs. Mary Hatch Willard 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Introduction 1 

Call Issued by Lafayette Day National Committee . 3 
Exercises at City Hall, New York: 

Address— Hon. "Willard Bartlett 5 

Address— Mayor Mitchel 7 

Beading of Messages by Mr. Leon : 

President of French Eepublic 9 

Marshal Joff re 10 

Ambassador Jusserand 10 

General Pershing H 

Ambassador Sharp H 

President Butler (of Columbia) 12 

Reading of Message by Commander Blackwood : 

Admiral Sir David Beatty 12 

Address— Hon. Willard Bartlett, Chairman' .' 13 

Address— Hon Henry van Dyke, D. C. L 15 

Address — Dr. Finley 24 

Address — M. Tardieu 29 

Lafayette Day Banquet, New York: 

Address— The French Ambassador 37 

Exercises at Statue of Lafayette, Union Square 

New York City ' 44 

Address — Mr. John Quinn ' 47 

Exercises— Prospect Park, Brooklyn 50 

Address— Mr. Stephane Lauzanne ... 50 

Lafayette Day in France 57 

Lafayette Day in United States outside of New 
York: 

Philadelphia 55 

San Francisco 75 

Los Angeles 77 



11 CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Seattle 77 

New Orleans 78 

Boston 81 

New Bedford 81 

Albany 83 

Baltimore 83 

Washington 83 

Charleston 84 

Allentown, Pa 85 

Saratoga 85 

Hudson, N. Y 87 

Irvington, N. Y 88 

Wheeling, W. Va 88 

"Lafayette, Here we are!" Reprint from Out- 
look, Oct. 17, 1917 93 

Lafayette Day and the Press 104 

Address presented to Maurice Leon by his fellow- 
members of the Lafayette Day National Com- 
mittee 109 

^LUSTRATIONS 

Arrival at City Hall, New York, September 6th, 

1917 33 

On the steps of City Hall, New York, after the 

Lafayette Day Exercises 35 

Celebration — Union Square, N. Y 45 

Celebration — Fere-Champenoise, France 56 

Celebration — Independence Hall, Philadelphia. . . 64 

Celebration— San Francisco, Cal 74 

Celebration— Boston, Mass 80 

General Pershing at Tomb of Lafayette 92 



The Lafayette Day National Committee was or- 
ganized in the early part of August 1915. Its mem- 
bership remained the same until the death of Mr. 
Choate this year, when Dr. Henry van Dyke was in- 
vited to fill the vacancy thereby created. No other 
change has occurred in the membership of the Com- 
mittee since its creation. 

The Committee issued its first call in August 1915 
for the celebration on September 6th of that year of the 
one hundred and fifty-eighth anniversary of the birth 
of the famous hero of the American Revolution and the 
first anniversary of the victory won in 1914, thanks 
to which liberty still endures in the world. That first 
oall being addressed to the press at large resulted in 
many leading articles being published throughout the 
country urging the observance of an anniversary 
doubly sacred in the annals of freedom. 

In its second call issued on July 14th, 1916 the Com- 
mittee, renewing its appeal to the press, added a re- 
quest that patriotic societies arrange for the holding 
of suitable exercises on Lafayette Day in our principal 
cities. Such exercises were held in 1916 in New York, 
Boston, Washington, Fall River, Providence, New Or- 
leans, San Francisco and Tacoma, Washington. His 
Excellency the French Ambassador Mr. Jusserand, 
after participating with the Governor of Massachu- 
setts, the senior senator of the United States for the 
Commonwealth of Massachusetts and others in the in- 
auguration of the Statue of Lafayette, at Fall River, 
was the guest of the City of New York on Lafayette 
Day, being officially greeted on behalf of the City by 
Hon. Frank L. Dowling, acting mayor, when he spoke 
at the exercises held in the Aldermanic Chamber of City 
Hall. The other speakers on that occasion were his 
colleague Hon. William Graves Sharp, American Am- 

[1] 



bassador to France, Hon. Robert Bacon and Dr. John 
Finley, Hon. Alton B. Parker presiding as chairman of 
the exercises. Those who attended this first official 
celebration of Lafayette Day in New York will long re- 
tain a recollection of the spontaneous outburst of enthu- 
siasm which marked the peroration of Mr. Bacon when, 
addressing the French Ambassador, he repeated to 
him the words spoken by Rochambeau to Washington : 
"Entre vous, entre nous, a la vie, a la mort"; and of 
the cheers which greeted that passage of the French 
Ambassador's address in w T hich, reminding the audi- 
ence that Lafayette had designed the tricolor of 
France, he said: "It is the flag of Valmy, the flag of 
the Marne, the flag of Verdun." 

A valuable feature of the celebration in New York 
this year as well as last year was provided by the 
banquet given by the France-America Society acting 
in co-operation with the Lafayette Day Citizens Com- 
mittee of New York for the purposes of the local cele- 
bration there. The address of the French Ambassador 
at the banquet last year formed part of the account of 
the Lafayette Day celebration published by this Com- 
mittee. II is address at this year's banquet will be 
found in this book. 

The call issued this year appears on the next page. 
Mr. Choate among his last activities, presided at the 
Committee's meeting May 1st, 1917, at which it was 
determined to issue that call. His regretted death oc- 
curing one month thereafter, was the first great loss 
this country was called upon to face in the cause, now 
made its own, of France and of Freedom. As is well 
known, he gave unsparingly his energy and strength 
to every aspect of those imperative duties of this fate- 
ful hour among which he numbered this one also. 
The Committee takes pride in having been associated 
with him in this phase of his earnest work. 

December, 1917. 



[2] 



LAFAYETTE DAY 1917 

Call issued by the Lafayette Day National Com- 
' mittee July 14th, 1917. 

That the nation may celebrate this year, as it did 
last year and in 1 C J15, the anniversary of Lafayette's 
birth, September 6th, 1757, the undersigned again com- 
mend the opportunity thus afforded to honor the mem- 
ory and commemorate the deeds of one of the noblest 
heroes of the American Revolution, thanks to whose 
efforts France's sympathy for the cause of freedom 
was given effective expression at a crucial period of 
the struggle for American Independence. In each of 
the last two years the press at large has contributed 
to the ever-renewed patriotic interest of our people in 
the personality and achievements of Lafayette by 
means of leading articles published on or near the day 
of the anniversary and it is hoped it will do so again 
this year; and municipalities acting with the co-opera- 
tion of patriotic societies are urged to hold suitable 
exercises upon that day, as was done last year in a 
number of our principal cities, many of which possess 
monuments in honor of Lafayette. 

Issuing this call on July 14th, when France com- 
memorates her struggle for liberty we are not unmind- 
ful that by honoring Lafayette upon his anniversary, 
a date made doubly memorable by the Battle of the 
Marne, we shall be giving expression to the sentiment 
of fraternal regard for our sister republic, our ally of 
old and of to-day, which exists among all elements <<f 
our people. 

(Mass.) 



Charles W. Eliot 
Moorefield Storey 

*Joseph H. Choate (N. Y.) 

Henry van Dyke (N.J.) 

Henry Watterson (Ky.) 

Charles J. Bonaparte (Md.) 

Caspar F. Goodrich (Conn.) 

W. R. Hodges (Mo.) 
Charles P. Johnson 



Theodore Roosevelt (N. Y.) 

George W. Wickersham 

George Haven Putnam 

William D. Guthrie " 

Judson Harmon (Ohio) 

Myron T. Herrick 

Charles Stewart Davison (N. Y.) Hon: Sec 

Maurice Leon Rec. Sec 

[3] 



Report in extenso of 

Lafayette Day Exercises 

Held at the 

Aldermamc Chamber of City Hall, New York 

September 6, 1917,3 P. M. 

Present His Honor the Mayor, Hon. Henry van 
Dyke, D. C. L., Dr. John H. Finley, James Stillman, 
Esq., honorary president, Hon. Willard Bartlett, chair- 
man, the officers and members of the Lafayette Day 
Citizens' Committee and the following Guests of 
Honor: 

France: Mr. Andre Tardieu, High Commissioner of 
the French Republic; Mr. Franklin Bouillon, mem- 
ber of the French Chamber of Deputies, delegate 
of the Interallied Parliamentary Commission; 
Colonel Claudon of the French General Staff; Com- 
mander de Blanpre, French Naval Attache ; Lieut. 
Legastellois. 

Mr. Gaston Liebert, Consul General of France; 
Mr. Nettement, Consul and Mr. S. d'Halewyn, 
Vice-Consul of France. 

Mr. Maurice Casenave, Minister Plenipotentiary; 
Mr. Gaston de Pellerin de Latouche; Mr. Daniel 
Blumenthal, former Mayor of Colmar, Alsace-Lor- 
raine ; Commandant Stefanik; Marquis de Polignac. 

Belgium: Lieutenant General Leclercq and Major 
Osterrieth of the Belgian Military Mission. 

British Empire: Commander Arthur T. Blackwood, of 
the Royal Navy of Great Britain and Ireland; 
Lieut. Colonel Campbell Stuart, of the Canadian 
Army; C. Clive Bayley, Esq., British Consul Gen- 
eral. 

[4] 



Address by Hon. WUlard Bartlett, Chairman 

Russia: Colonel V. V. Oranovsky and Lieut. N. N. 
Smirnoff, of the Russian Military Mission; M. Mi- 
chel Oustinoff, Eussian Consul General. 

Italy: Colonel Bindo Binda, Lieutenants Mario Pas- 
quali, Elmo de Paoli, Giuseppe Coppola and Ugo 
Spinola, of the Italian Army. 

Brig. General Eli D. Hoyle, U. S. A. 

Commanding Eastern Division 

Col. W. A. Simpson, U. S. A. 

Rear Admiral N. R. Usher, U. S. N. 

Commandant Navy Yard 
Lt. Com. J. W. Wilcox, Jr., U. S. N. 

These guests had been met at the Bar Association 
Building, West 44th Street, by the Reception Commit- 
tee, which accompanied them to City Hall, attended by 
an escort of motor-cycle police. The City was pro- 
fusely decorated with flags, particularly along the 
route followed by the party. City Hall was suitably 
decorated for the occasion; the decoration of the 
Aldermanic Chamber centered about Morse's portrait 
of Lafayette which had been placed over the platform. 
As the guests entered, the "Marseillaise" was played. 

Opening Address 

Hon. Willaed Baetlett (Chairman): Before en- 
tering upon the exercises it is my duty and pleasure 
to thank the President of the Board of Aldermen for 
the use of this beautiful chamber. Without his con- 
sent we should not be here. 

We are assembled, ladies and gentlemen, to com- 
memorate the patriotic virtues of one of the noblest 
characters in American history. Rudyard Kipling, in 
the title of his splendid recessional, has given expres- 

[5] 



Address by Hon. Willard Bartlett, Chairman 

sion to the spirit of such an occasion as this: "Lest 
We Forget"! We are gathered here on this afternoon 
of the early autumn in the year 1917 "lest we forget" 
the old-time friendship between France and America 
which began with the coming of Lafayette to this coun- 
try in the year 1777. We are here "lest we forget" 
how that friendship was maintained by the military 
and naval assistance which the infant nation received 
from Rochambeau on the land and from DeGrasse on 
the sea. And we are here most of all "lest we forget" 
the help which Lafayette gave to the Americans on 
that day when they needed help indeed; and, as the 
call for this meeting has indicated to you, we are here 
to commemorate another anniversary, the anniversary 
of an event which occurred three years ago in the once 
beautiful Valley of the Marne, an event which we cele- 
brate with all the more enthusiasm because today 
American bayonets flash in the sunlight of France, and 
those who carry them march side by side with the 
French and British soldiery against the foe, not only 
of France and Britain, but the foe of civilization. 
(Applause.) 

Guests whom we delight to honor have come to 
participate with us in this service of commemoration, 
and the Mayor of the City of New York, whose proud 
privilege it is to preside over the destinies of this great 
municipality at perhaps the most interesting period in 
its existence, will now welcome these guests in your 
behalf. (Applause.) 

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the pleasure of pre- 
senting — I need not introduce him — Mayor Mitchel. 
(Applause.) 



[6] 



Address by Mayor Mitchel 

M. Tardieu, -High Commissioner of the French Re- 
public; gentlemen of France, distinguished guests rep- 
resenting the nations allied with us in this war, and 
ladies and gentlemen: America ever rejoices at the 
opportunity to honor the memory of Lafayette. The 
City of New York, as a patriotic community of this 
country, as the city that received Lafayette upon his 
return to the United State, welcomes indeed the oppor- 
tunity afforded today of receiving these representatives 
of France whom come to join us in this celebration of 
the birthday of the great benefactor of our country, 
sent to us by France. (Applause.) 

It is fitting, it seems to me, that this room, which 
has received in succession the Missions sent from 
France, from Great Britain, from Italy, from Russia 
and from Belgium, — this room in which the welcome 
of the people of New York has been extended to these, 
our Allies, should be the place where today we celebrate 
the birthday of the man who came to us from France 
to lend his arm, his name and his prestige to the cause 
of human liberty, represented by the thirteen colonies 
in that day. 

It is one of those extraordinary accidents of Fate 
that on the birthday of Lafayette, who did so much to 
secure the liberty and independence of the people of 
the United 'States, there should have been fought out 
upon the soil of France the battle which was to de- 
termine, not alone the liberties of France, not alone 
the liberties of the self-governing nations of Europe, 
but which we confidently believe determined also the 
maintenance of the liberties of the people of the United 
States. (Applause.) Because, gentlemen, we recognize 
today that had your great Marshal JofTre failed to stop 
them at the Marne, the onward march of autocracy 
would not have been stayed by the Atlantic Ocean, but 
the people of this country, to maintain the institutions 

[7] 



Address by Mayor Mitchel 

of free government that they have builded up, and to 
protect their homes and their persons and their liberty 
and property, would have been compelled to fight out 
here the battles that are now being fought out in 
France and along the Western front and Eastern 
fronts in Europe. (Applause.) 

And so, we make acknowledgement today, not only 
of the great services of Lafayette, not only of the debt 
that we owe to him and to the men of France who came 
here in those days to serve with the people of the Unit- 
ed States in our cause, but the debt that we owe today 
for this new service to our country that has been ren- 
dered by the great Eepublic that you represent. (Ap- 
plause.) 

Gentlemen, when your War Commission and the 
others did this city the honor to visit it, I took occasion 
to point out that America, in rallying all of her re- 
sources to the prosecution of this war, in calling upon 
her young men to go into these concentration camps 
and prepare themselves for service, in sending them 
across the seas to take their places with the soldiers 
of your nations in this war, was, as far as France is 
concerned at least, returning only something of the 
benefit that we received in those days at the hands 
of France. (Applause.) Our troops go there, of course, 
to fight the battle of human liberty, to protect the in- 
stitutions of self-government, to insure that small na- 
tions shall be safe against aggression and conquest 
by the mighty, but they go there too, I submit, to dis- 
charge a part of this debt that America owes to France, 
and they go gladly for that reason as well as for the 
others. (Applause.) 

Gentlemen, we are all engaged in a mighty under- 
taking, the greatest that the civilized world has ever 
seen. These nations that you represent and our na- 
tion are banded together to see that democracy, that 
self-government, that human liberty shall not perish 

[8] 



Reading of Messages by Mr. Leon 

from the earth. America has resolved to see this 
struggle to it's ultimate conclusion and to victory. 
(Applause.) 

Many of you in Washington or here in the City of 
New York have seen, first the men of the National 
Guard contributed by the City of New York to the 
government service march through our streets ac- 
claimed by all our people, and a few days later you 
have seen the men called under the draft to the coun- 
try's colors march by, smiling, cheerful, ready, willing. 
These things contain promise for the future; they 
mean that the people of the United States will not 
falter, that they have deliberately undertaken to dis- 
charge a great duty, and that there will be no stop, no 
cessation, no hesitation, until that duty is completely 
discharged and until victory has come to the Allied 
arms. (Applause.) 



The Chairman: Ladies and gentlemen, we have 
received a number of letters from those who are in 
sympathy with the objects of this gathering, but whose 
bodily presence is necessarily withheld. Our accom- 
plished and indefatigueable Recording Secretary, Mr. 
Leon, will now kindly read for us all but one of these 
letters. 

Reading of Messages by MR. LEON 

The first message is from the President of the 
French Republic: (Applause.) 

"I beg you to assure, on my behalf, the New 
York Committee of Lafayette Day of the heartiest 
sympathy with which I associate myself with the 
imposing manifestation which has been organized 
to commemorate the unforgettable date of the 



[9] 



Reading of Messages by Mr. Leon 

sixth of September. By rendering homage to the 
heroes of former times and those who have re- 
cently given their lives for the same sacred cause, 
France and the United States consecrate once 
more their ancient and unbreakable friendship." 
"Poincare" (Applause.) 

The next message is from Marshal Joffre: (Ap- 
plause.) 

"As in <the great days of Lafayette, the United 
States and France have once more joined together 
heart and soul in the defence of justice and liberty. 
The two sister republics are combining their ef- 
forts for the triumph of a common cause. La- 
fayette, inspired by a spirit of splendid generosity, 
gave soul and sword to the service of the United 
States, then fighting for their independence. La- 
fayette symbolized the youth of France, with her 
eternal love of heroism. Today the entire Amer- 
ican nation rises with an irresistable might against 
the Germanic oppression. The lofty ideas, in de- 
fence of which French blood flowed in America, 
demand new sacrifices, this time on the soil of 
France. As at Yorktown, victory will crown our 
efforts and the brotherly spirit which united the 
companions of Lafayette with their American 
allies will assure the triumph of our united armies 
for the independence of the world." (Applause.) 

The next message is from His Excellency, the 
French Ambassador, M. Jusserand: (Applause.) 

"Hearty greetings to the faithful admirers of 
the defender of liberty in the two worlds. Nothing 
short of my commemorating his birthday in a 
place as sacred for him as for us — that is, Inde- 
pendence Hall, Philadelphia, — could prevent me 

[10] 



Reading of Messages by Mr. Leon 

from being with you this year. As long as liberty 
shall endure in this world, so long will Lafayette's 
memory be blessed. 

Jusserand, French Ambassador." (Applause.) 

The next message is from General Pershing: (Ap- 
plause.) 

"On this, the third anniversary of the Battle 
of the Marne, the Americans in Prance unite with 
you at home in honoring the name of Lafayette. 
His services for the cause of democracy are charac- 
teristic of the great nation he represented. These 
same qualities inspire the French people of our 
day to make the heroic sacrifices they have made 
during the present world war." (Applause.) 

The next message is from Ambassador Sharp, our 
Ambassador to France, who was our guest last year: 

"The dual celebration throughout America of 
this memorable day will find an appreciative re- 
sponse in the hearts of the people of France as a 
touching evidence of our sympathy, admiration 
and gratitude. Lafayette and Joffre ! With what 
illustrious names, past and present, may the cause 
of democracy conjure ! As in the days of the vic- 
tory of the Marne, so today the voice of France, 
with a courage and confidence, calm and indomit- 
able, still calls her sons to a sacred and victorious 
sacrifice in the world's cause of liberty and 
humanity. Greater and more illustrious than 
the warring heroes of old, they battle, not for 
conquest or power, for the defence of their homes 
and the triumph of the inalienable right of a free 
people. I rejoice that the full realization of the 
vital principles at stake and of the far-reaching 
consequences of the outcome has brought the unit- 

[11] 



Reading of Message by Commander Blackwood 

ed support of liberty-loving America to the side 
of valiant France and her Allies. 

William G. Sharp." (Applause.) 

President Butler of Columbia says: 

"America, old and young, turns toward France 
and the memories and achievements which the 
name of France recall with a genuine enthusiasm 
and affection that are difficult to describe in 
words. The noble spectacle of the French Repub- 
lic defending, not only its own life and integrity, 
but the cause of human liberty for three long 
years on the firing line of unexampled difficulty 
and furore, is already a beacon light in history. 
To dwell upon all that France is and all that 
France means to the United States and to the 
world, is to gain new strength for the stern duties 
and obligations of our own national and inter- 
national life." (Applause.) 



The Chairman: I told you that our Secretary 
would read all the messages we had received but one. 
That one is from Admiral Sir David Beatty, of the 
High Seas Fleet of Great Britain. The British Navy 
is represented here today by a number of officers, 
among whom is Commander Arthur T. Blackwood, and 
he has kindly consented, at our request, to read this 
message. 

Commander Blackwood: Mr. Chairman, ladies and 
gentlemen: The message from Admiral Sir David 
Beatty, commanding the British Grand Fleet: 

"The Grand Fleet send their greetings. We 
welcome warmly the co-operation of the gallant 
navy of the United States of America as a sign 
and guarantee of mutual determination to win 
final and complete victory over piracy on sea and 
land." (Applause.) 

[12] 



Address by Hon. Willard Bartlett, Chairman 

When I accepted the courteous invitation of the 
Committee to preisde on this occasion, I did not sup- 
pose I should be expected to do more than introduce 
the several distinguished speakers; but the program 
calls for an address by the Chairman, and I cannot 
treat our program as a " scrap of paper" in any respect. 
I will fulfill its promise, therefore, so far as the Chair- 
man is concerned by calling your attention for a mo- 
ment to what seems to me to have been the most sig- 
nificant feature in the career of Lafayette. I mean his 
life-long devotion to the cause of constitutional liberty. 

It is true that when we think of Lafayette we gen- 
erally think of him in his character as a military man. 
We see him commissioned by Congress as a Major- 
G-eneral in the Army of the United States at the age 
of twenty years ; we see him a few months thereafter 
wounded on the battlefield and in spite of his wound, 
endeavoring to rally his troops in the disastrous en- 
gagement on the Brandywine; we see him still later 
eluding the pursuit of Cornwallis with a vastly supe- 
rior force, in the Carolinas after the Battle of the 
Cowpens ; and we see him side by side with Alexander 
Hamilton leading one of the assaulting parties at the 
siege of Yorktown. In subsequent years after his re- 
turn to France, upon the fall of the Bastile, we find 
him appointed to the command of the National Guar* 1 
in Paris ; then at the head of one of the French Armies 
in the field winning successive victories for his coun- 
try; until finally the Eeign of Terror compelled him to 
relinquish his command and become a fugitive and 
for five years a captive in an Austrian military prison. 
I will not attempt to trace his military career any 
further; but the point which I desire to emphasize is 
that in all places and at all seasons, he adhered to the 

[13] 



Address by Hon. Willard Bartlett, Chairman 

doctrine that liberty could not be established or pre- 
served except under the sanction of law; and in the 
assertion of this principle he sacrificed his personal 
interests and his military ambitions, time and time 
again, during his long career. The great lesson that 
liberty and law are inseparable has not been learned 
by the whole world yet. It is being taught, let us hope, 
sucessfully, in republican Russia today. 

Looking back over thirty-three years of judicial 
service to my State, I feel a peculiar pleasure, — I might 
almost call it professional, — in joining with you on this 
occasion in the celebration of this double anniversary, 
— the birth of Lafayette and the Battle of the Marne. 
Lafayette realized that the supremacy of a fundamen- 
tal body of law proceeding from the people was essen- 
tial to the liberty of a nation. In the same spirit, we 
realize that the observance of international law is 
essential to the preservation of liberty throughout the 
world. The nations that are fighting the German Gov- 
ernment today are fighting for the supremacy of inter- 
national law, and are determined that it shall prevail. 
It is, therefore, peculiarly incumbent upon every 
lawyer and jurist to aid our brothers in arms by grati- 
tude for the glorious past and encouragement for what 
we hope will be a glorious future. For these reasons, 
I am glad to be here, and I thank you. 

Having now discharged the first duty imposed upon 
me by the program, I will proceed to the more grateful 
function of introducing the speakers who have kindly 
consented to address you. Those of you who have at- 
tended college commencements where honorary de- 
grees are conferred — may have observed that it is the 
habit of the college president, when he hands the dis- 
tinguished recipient his degree, to briefly characterize 
his achievements and tell what sort of a man he is. 
Now, I mean to make my introductions short, and I 
have concluded to adopt the same system in introduc- 

[141 



Address by Hon. Henry van Dyke, D. C. L. 

ing the gentlemen who are to speak to you this after- 
noon; so I now call upon Dr. Henry Van Dyke, the 
distinguished son of a distinguished father, — clergy- 
man, college professor, poet, essayist, Minister to Hol- 
land and Luxemburg, and a fisher for trout and a fisher 
of men, equally successful in both capacities. (Ap- 
plause.) 



THE CHIVALRY OF LAFAYETTE 

Address by Hon. Henky van Dyke, D. C. L. 

In the great Calendar of Freedom September sixth 
is marked with a star to commemorate the birth of a 
hero, — Gilbert Motier de la Fayette. 

He was one of Nature's noblemen. 

He was a legitimate "Son of Liberty"; dedicating 
his youth to her cause in a far land; spending his man- 
hood in her service in his own country; and standing 
fast in his old age, undaunted by defeat, wounds, im- 
prisonment and poverty, uncorrupted by the bribes 
and blandishments of tyrants whether of the court or 
of the mob, unconquerably loyal to his ideal of free- 
dom secured by law and democracy founded on justice. 

Rightly has his birthday been marked with the 
hero-star. But today, in this year of grace and fiery 
trial, 1917, let us mark it with a double star. It stands 
for the mutual and indissoluble friendship of France 
and America, — sealed a hundred and forty years ago 
with French blood in America, — resealed and ratified 
now with American blood in France! (Applause.) 

Yes, let us mark this day with a triple star. For 
now the British forces, which the Hanoverian King 
George III and his fat-witted Tory ministry had ar- 
rayed against us on the field of Yorktown, stand with 
us in the fight for the world's liberation from the men- 
ace of military autocracy. Long since has that battle 

[15] 



The Chivalry of Lafayette 

which Lafayette and the French helped us to win 
against the Germanic king and his Hessian mercen- 
aries borne the fruits of peace with victory. Long 
since has England realized that our resistance to her 
monarch was a defence of her own cause, and felt the 
truth of Tennyson's words: 

"What wonder if in noble heat 
These men thine arms withstood, 
Retaught the lesson thou hadst taught, 
And in thy spirit with thee fought J" 

Long since has France escaped from the successive 
yokes of Bourbonism, Sans-cullotism, and Napoleonism 
and fulfilled the deferred hope for which Lafayette 
labored, a free government of a self-controlled people. 
Mark this day with a triple star, for by the law of 
nature and spiritual affinity, stronger than any politi- 
cal alliance or dynastic conspiracy, a three-fold con- 
stellation has formed and risen in the international 
sky. Along the banks of the Yser and the Somme, 
the Aisne and the Meuse, above the heroes who give 
their lives to make the world "safe for democracy", 
the sun of this day sees floating side by side the Tri- 
color, the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes ! (Ap- 
plause.) 

It would be superfluous for the speaker on this 
occasion to describe, even in outline, that well-known 
life of Lafayette which is set forth in his "Memoirs" 
and in the biographies by Bayard Tuckerman and 
Charlemagne Tower. It would be presumptuous for 
him to try to add to those glowing eulogies which hn\ e 
been pronounced by such orators as Daniel Webster, 
John Quincy Adams, Edward Everett, Caleb Cushing, 
and only last year in this assembly by John Finley, 
and by that beloved Ambassador Jusserand (applause) 
who has done more than any man since Lafayette to 
reveal and endear France to us. (Great applause.) 
Only one line is left open to me, and that is to speak 

[16] 



Address by Hon. Henry van Dyke, D. C. L. 

briefly of the personal qualities of this hero, which 
gave especial value to the service which he rendered 
to our country and to his own, — qualities that shine 
with living splendor now in the light of that fiery front 
which stretches from Ypres to Belfort, from the Tren- 
tino to the gateway of Trieste. (Applause.) 

Nothing more eloquent has been said of Lafayette 
than the words in which Charles Fox, pleading for the 
aid of England to rescue him from an Austrian prison, 
described him to the British Parliament in 1796 as 
"that noble character which will flourish in the annals 
of the world and live in the veneration of posterity 
when kings and the crowns they wear will be no more 
regarded than the dust to which they must return". 
But there is a clearer and more luminous vision in 
what Sainte-Beuve wrote in 1838: "I believe that if 
Lafayette had lived in the Middle Ages he would have 
been what he was in our own times, a chevalier, seek- 
ing still in his own way the triumph of the Rights of 
Man under the sign of the Holy Grail". 

Of all that has been said about Lafayette I like the 
words of Sainte-Beuve best. They give the key-note of 
the character which we desire not only to praise, but 
also to understand. He was a true knight of liberty, 
a chevalier. The distinctive glory of his career lay 
not in military genius, though he had a touch of it; 
nor in political sagacity, for he had none of it. The 
golden secret of his inestimable service to America, to 
France, to the world, lay in his whole-hearted chivalry. 

The first element of chivalry is enthusiasm, a flame 
in the soul, a great love, a sovereign passion. 

From the moment when young Lafayette, a junior 
officer in the French Musketeers, dining with his com- 
mander in the garrison of Metz, heard the Duke of 
Gloucester, a brother but no great friend of George III, 
tell the story of the fight for freedom in America, the 
heart of the eighteen year old boy, to use his own 

[17] 



The Chivalry of Lafayette 

words, "enlisted"; the knight embraced his life-long 
quest. 

I do not believe that he fully understood it then 
as he did later when he wrote: "This was the last 
struggle of Liberty ; its defeat would have left it with- 
out a refuge and without a hope". No, in that first 
fine impulse of devotion there was less reasoning and 
more instinct. It was a coup de foudre, love at first 
sight. But it was real enough to carry him through a 
hundred obstacles to t lie accomplishment of his fixed 
purpose of crossing the ocean and offering his sword 
to America. 

Everything was against him. The government of 
France, at peace with England, could not sanction the 
expedition of a greal French nobleman to join the 
rebels, lie wisely forgot to ask for the sanction. His 
family and all his titled friends and relatives, (except 
his noble wife, a girl of seventeen,) opposed his plan 
as a crazy whim. He prudently stopped talking about 
it and quietly worked at it. The American Commis- 
sioner in Paris who had at first accepted his offer and 
promised him the rank oi' major-general in the Amer- 
ican forces, now discouraged him and said he could 
provide no ship for the voyage. He made the retort 
courteous by purchasing a ship at Bordeaux with his 
own money and offering a passage to twelve other 
French officers. The timid King, alarmed at the pos- 
sible consequences of the action of this rash young 
man. forbade him to go, and issued one of those ter- 
rible lettres de cachet against him. Lafayette v 
arrested and virtually a prisoner. He escaped in dis- 
guise to a port in Spain, where his ship picked him up: 
and after a most sea-sick voyage of fifty-four days. 
landed him on June 13, 1777, in a wild creek on the 
shore of £outh Carolina, where he groped his way at 
midnight to thr> door of a plantation, and after the 
do<rs had harked at him. he was received by the owner, 

[18] 



Address by Hon. Henry ran Dyke, D. C. L. 

Major lluger,, with all the warmth of Southern hospi- 
tality. 

None of these experiences damped the enthusiasm 
of the young chevalier. He rejoiced in hardship. 
Everything- pleased him in his new country. He wrote 
to his beloved wife, his "dear heart", in rapturous 
strain, of the beauty of the land; the agreeable sim- 
plicity of the people among whom "all the citizens are 
brothers" and "the richest and the poorest are on the 
same social level"; and above all the charm of the 
American women who "are very beautiful, unaffected 
in manner, and of a charming neatness". Bravo, chev- 
valier ! 

Arriving in Philadelphia, after a slow and toilsome 
journey, he was rather coldly received by members of 
Congress, who were at that time surfeited with for- 
eign officers of minor merit who demanded high com- 
mand and pay. But Lafayette was of another type. 
He sent a frank and generous address to Congress in 
which he asked only two favors: "the one is, to serve 
without pay, at my own expense; the other is that I be 
allowed to serve at first as a volunteer". His offer 
was accepted, a commission as major-general was 
granted to him, and he was assigned, at his own re- 
quest, to the staff of Washington, henceforth his 
adored Chief. 

Thus began one of the most famous and perfect 
friendships in human annals, — the sublime Washing- 
ton and the generous, loyal Lafayette. Thus America 
enrolled in the imperishable cause of Liberty a most 
noble, perfect knight, — a man so brave that when he 
was wounded at Brandywine he fought on with the 
blood running out of his bootjj, — a man so devoted that 
he refused the absolute command of an army to invade 
Canada because he detected in the offer a cabal against 
his Chief, — a man so unselfish that he resigned the 
leadership of the troops to another at Monmouth with- 

[19] 



The Chivalry of Lafayette 

out a murmur because his Chief wished it, — a man so 
courteous that he neither took nor gave offense, but 
was always smoothing away jealousies and strifes be- 
tween other officers, as he did at Newport, — a man so 
steadfast that he never relaxed his efforts until the 
alliance between France and America bore full fruit 
in the presence of the French fleet and the French 
army under Rochambeau at Yorktown, — and then, a 
man so high-minded that he would not advance to crush 
Cornwallis until Washington was present to command 
the final victory. 

It was the youthful chivalry of this man, as Count 
d'Estaing said, that "so happily formed the first bond 
of union" between two great nations, to both of whom 
his fame now belongs. 

My friends, history repeats itself before our eyes. 
When the mad Potsdam war-lords struck their treach- 
erous blow through bleeding Belgium at the breast of 
France, in August 1914, the young heart of America 
"enlisted" in her cause, — the sacred cause of Liberty. 
In the air and in the ambulance, in the trenches and in 
the hospitals, thousands of the flower of our youth 
sprang to her service, — volunteers, volunteers ! They 
asked no official sanction; they disregarded and over- 
leaped all obstacles; they were mustered by enthu- 
siasm and enrolled by devotion ; they gave themselves 
as a true knight lays his gift at his lady's feet Write 
the names of Victor Chapman, Richard Hall, Alan 
Seeger and the many young heroes who followed them 
on the road to glorious death, in the roll of that order 
of chivalry which is headed by the name of Lafayette. 
Write also the names of those brave boys, — yes, and 
girls too, — whom danger spared, as it spared him, and 
who live on as he lived to serve the undying cause of 
freedom. (Applause.) 

Let us not forget the peculiar and inestimable value 
of just such chivalry. Even as Lafayette's "beau 

[20] 



Address by Hon. Henry van Dyke, D. C. L. 

geste" was a ppwerful and steady influence in bringing 
France to our side in that first struggle, so the example 
of our heroic youth has been of great avail among the 
potent, constant causes which have brought America 
to her inevitable place in this last fight for democracy 
against tyranny. The eloquent words in which Presi- 
dent Wilson announced the participation of our coun- 
try with France and Great Britain in this war, repeat 
and reverberate the very principles which Lafayette 
voiced a hundred times and in which he lived and died. 

Eemember also, and especially at this hour, the 
chivalrous tenacity with which he kept his faith. He 
came to us at the darkest time of our early history. 
The defeat of Long Island had put Washington's army 
to flight. The ragged Continentals were freezing in 
their refuge at Valley Forge. The defenders seemed 
unable to drive the invaders out, and the invaders un- 
able to catch the defenders. It looked like a drawn bat- 
tle, a stalemate. Many declared the struggle vain, and 
cried out for a conference, a compromise, a peace by 
arrangement. But Washington knew better than to 
dishoner the sacrifice already made in order to obtain 
a counterfeit of the thing he was fighting for. La- 
fayette stood with him. He had enlisted not for a 
campaign, but for the war. The word stalemate was 
not in his vocabulary. The words that stood emblaz- 
oned there were first, Victory; then Liberty; then, 
Peace. The chosen motto on his coat-of-arms was 
cur non, — "Why not?" and the spirit of his life was 
to "fight on". 

ADSIT OMEN ! May his example be prophetic. In 
this time of trial the faint-hearted are once more talk- 
ing of a drawn battle, and the fatuous friends of a 
false peace are calling for conference and compromise. 
Between truth and treachery there can be no confer- 
ence, between democracy and autocracy no stalemato. 
There is but one thing for us to do: fight on till we 

[211 



The Chivalry of Lafayette 

reach a peace worth having. The President has just 
said that "the intolerable wrongs done in this war by 
the furious and brutal power of the Imperial German 
Government ought to be repaired". They shall be! 
He has pledged our country "to exert all its power 
and employ all its resources to bring the Government 
of the German Empire to terms and end this war." 
We shall be content with nothing less ! When that is 
accomplished we shall rejoice with France and Britain 
in welcoming peace, — not a peace honorable to dishon- 
er, but a peace worth having, a peace that will be good 
for all mankind. (Applause.) 

The task which you have laid upon me for this day 
has been but imperfectly fulfilled. One word only re- 
mains to be spoken. Remember, I pray you, that the 
chivalry of Lafayette, — his enthusiasm, his devotion, 
his courage, his courtesy, his tenacity of noble pur- 
pose, — is the embodiment to the real spirit of France. 
Dismiss from your minds the silly Berlin talk about 
a decadent race. Dismiss the superficial notion of a 
frivolous and fickle people which tourists have gath- 
ered in the places prepared for their amusement. Dis- 
miss even the mistaken reports of down-hearted 
friends who speak of a nation already "bled white" 
and ready to lie down and die. None of these things 
are true. (Applause.) I know the "foyers", the homes 
of France, and have warmed my heart at the fires of 
love and loyalty which glow there. I know the great 
schools and workshops of France and the steady in- 
dustry which animates them. I know the battlefront 
of France. 

I come from the world-famous fortress of Verdun. 
— its citadel, its ruined suburbs, its hospitals bombed 
by the barbarous Prussians, its far-flung trenches un- 
der fire. No drop of blood that falls there is white ; 
it is all red. (Applause.) No man who fights there to 
defend his country dreams of surrender or under- 

[22] 



Address by Hon. Henry van Dyke, D. C. L. 

stands the word stalemate. Serious, cheerful, fearless, 
indomitable, officers and soldiers, their thoughts are 
of victory, liberty, peace. The word with which they 
bade me farewell was the immortal phrase: "On les 
aura, — we shall get them!" (Applause.) 

THE NAME OF FRANCE. 

Give us a name to fill the mind 
With the shining thoughts that lead mankind 
The glory of learning, the joy of art, — 
A name that tells of a splendid part 
In the long, long toil and the strenuous fight 
Of the human race to win its way 
From the ancient darkness into the day 
Of Freedom, Brotherhood, Equal Right, — 
A name like a star, a name of light, — 
I give you France! 
(Applause.) 

Give us a name to stir the blood 
With a warmer glow and a swifter flood, — 
A name like the sound of a trumpet, clear, 
And silver-sweet, and iron-strong, 
That calls three million men to their feet, 
Ready to march, and steady to meet 
The foes who threaten that name with wrong, — 
A name that rings like a battle-song, — 
I give you France! 
(Applause.) 

Give us a name to move the heart 
With the strength that noble griefs impart, 
A name that speaks of the blood outpoured 
To save mankind from the sway of the sword, — 
A name that calls on the world to share 
In the burden of sacrificial strife 
When the cause at stake is the world's free life 
And the rule of the people everywhere, — 
A name like a vow, a name like a prayer, — 
I give you France! 

(Great applause.) 
[231 



Address by Dr. Finley 

The Chairman: Ladies and gentlemen, you will 
now have the pleasure of hearing a distinguished edu- 
cator, economist, historian and poet, one whose rela- 
tions with France as Harvard Exchange Lecturer and 
whose studies on the French discoverers in America 
make his presence here peculiarly fitting. We welcome 
Dr. John H. Finley. (Applause.) 



Address by Dr. Finley 

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Mayor, M. Tardieu: 1 
should use all of your titles if I could repeat them 
as accurately as my excellent French men and 
women allies of France. An invitation to read a poem 
here today is not a tribute to my poetic ability; it is a 
tribute to my love of France. It was assumed by the 
Committee with knowledge that if the Judge who has 
so eloquently presided, and the Mayor and Dr. Van 
Dyke, were to speak in prose, there would be nothing 
worth while to say in prose. I suppose I should not 
have been asked to speak in verse, if I had been asked 
at all, if Dr. Van Dyke had been asked to read a poem. 
But now since he has spoken both in prose and in verse 
I have no rhyme nor reason for speaking upon that 
subject which is dear to me. I tried to say last year 
all that I could in prose and in verse. I read these lines 
simply because of the invitation and because of my 
love for France. These lines do not speak of La- 
fayette; they have little to say of him; nor do they 
have much to say of Joffre, — perhaps nothing. 

I said to the people in France a little time back, 
"We understand one another, though we do not under- 
stand each other's language", — at any rate they could 
not understand my French. I said, "In America M. 
Viviani spoke no English, and yet he was understood 

[24] 



Address by Dr. Finley 

everywhere; and Marshal Joffre did not speak at all, 
and yet he was understood. (Laughter and applause.) 

I am going to tell of a land which is called — which 
I have called, at any rate — "Every Man's Land". 
It is that little strip of land, or ribbon, across the north 
of France, running from Nieuport down to Belfour, — 
that little strip of land whose boundaries Marshal 
Joffre had a part in determining. It was not far from 
there, as Dr. Van Dyke and Judge Bartlett have told 
us, that Lafayette set out. It was only an hour in an 
automobile, if he had one then, from Verdun that La- 
fayette enlisted ; it was only an hour by aircraft from 
the Valley of the Marne that he enlisted, and he passed 
through that valley on his way to Paris and to the 
coast to come to our aid. It was somewhere in that 
valley that I saw in a little school, written upon the 
blackboard, two names; one was Washington and the 
other was Wilson. I sought to evoke the name of 
Lafayette, and I asked the boys, "Who was a great 
friend of Washington?" and one little fellow put up 
his hand and said "Wilson". Wilson is indeed today, 
in his message, our Lafayette to France. 

If these lines have the smell of oil upon them I 
must tell you in advance that it is not the oil which 
scholars use; it is the oil that is used in the automo- 
bile ; and if there is any dust upon them, it is not the 
dust of the bookshelf, it is the dust that has blown in 
the car window; and I think a bit of it is from the 
Valley of the Marne, in which I travelled a few days 
back. 



[25] 



Address by Dr. Finley 

EVERY MAN'S LAND 

(Le Pays de Tout Homme) 
By John Finley 

I 

There's a strip of the Earth 
That's of infinite worth, 

Though a craterous, sterile space ; 
Its border's a trench 
And the ground of it's French, 

But it's leased by the human race. 

II 

It is many leagues long, 
But so narrow, a song 

Can span with a quaver this strait ; 
Yet when Lucifer fell 
From high Heaven to Hell 

No farther he flew to his fate. 

in 

No loved latitude's line 
Does this region define ; 

It wanders in aimless extent, 
Like a trickle of blood 
O'er a globe all bestud 

With landmarks of ancient descent. 

IV 

By the World it is tilled, 
And its acres are filled 

With the harrows of Moloch's moil; 
While the myriad mind 
Of the whole human kind 

Comes daily to watch its grim toi T 

[26] 



Every Man's Land 

V 

In its skies are no birds, 
In its pastures no herds, 

Save airplanes and tauben and tanks; 
'er its every red rood, 
The cannon-clouds brood, 

All its rivers have flowerless banks. 

VI 

By a Pentecost flame 
Is lit every name 

From Ypres to the Vosgian tarn; 
In every known tongue 
Are its syllables sung — 

Through every man's speech runs the Marne. 

VII 

For it's "Every Man's Land," 
And every man's hand 

That has fought for Liberty there 
Has but helped clear the site 
For the temples of Right 

That will spring in its valiant air. 

VIII 

And some day there will rise 
In the sight of men's eyes 

A Pantheon, out in this field, 
'Mid the iron-stained clods 
Where the poilus, grown gods, 

The spirit of France have revealed. 

IX 

And with it will stand 

In this "Every Man's Land" 

(Not no man's but every man's ground) 
The impregnable walls 
Of Delectable Halls 

Where Earth's greatest seers will be found. 

[27] 



Address by M. Tardieu 

X 

Where every land's Youth 
Will look for the Truth 

At the end of the planet's wars; 
Where blood-burgeoning flowers 
Love-lingering bowers 

Will lift at their luminous doors. 

XI 

"Le Pays de Tout Homme" 
By the Meuse and the Somme 

We'll love thy brave soil as our own; 
Thy tenuous thread 
Is the pledge of thy dead 

That Might "shall not pass" to Earth's throne. 

XII 

On the ruins of hates 
The United World States 

Will build in thy trenches their fane 
To a Freedom, world-wide, 
That they who have died 

Shall not one have perished in vain. 

(Applause) 



The Chairman : The speaker who is last to ad- 
dress you is a representative of France in ever} 7 " sense 
— a legislator at home and the head of the French Mis- 
sion here, an experienced journalist and a writer on 
historical subjects, and most of all a tried soldier whose 
valor in the field has been attested by the tributes 
awarded to him by his own government. It gives me 
great pleasure to introduce M. Tardieu. (Applause.) 



[281 



Address by Mr. Andre Tardieu 
French High Commissioner 

M. Taedieu : I am happy to have been able to ac- 
cept your invitation and to come, on behalf of the 
French Republic's Government, in order to bring you 
the fraternal greetings of France on this memorial day 
in which the most glorious recollections of our own and 
of your own history are being united. 

On account of a splendid coincidence we are to-day 
celebrating two commemorations. 

We are meeting together to honor the memory of 
Lafayette upon the anniversary of his birthday. But 
to-day is also the day when, three years ago, the French 
armies, after retreating for two weeks, started the 
offensive of the Marne and began this heroic battle of 
six days duration in which they broke to pieces the 
criminal designs of the enemy. 

Gentlemen, three years ago, — allow me to call up 
again this bright memory from my past as a soldier 
during the war — three years ago, along the whole front 
from Paris to Verdun, the armies of France were 
marching forward, and the fire of our batteries was 
opening the way to the bayonets of the infantrymen: 
civilization was saved. (Applause.) 

During three years since, we have been bearing 
without giving way, without flinching, the main bur- 
den of this huge and awful fight: but on that very first 
day of the battle of the Marne, the main decision has 
been won. 

Victory of liberty against autocracy, of right 
against violence, the battle of the Marne made possible 
the long endeavor by which we are, since, every day, 
brought nearer to victory ; the battle of the Marne car- 
ried with her a decision in the history of mankind. 

Through it. all the principles for which the T T . S. 

[29] 



Address by M. Tardieu 

have been living and for which they are now ready to 
fight, have been made safe against the onslaught of 
German brutality. Through it, civilization and the 
freedom of the peoples have been saved from the direst 
peril by which they were ever threatened and endan- 
gered. 

Thus, Gentlemen, from century to century, the his- 
tory of the world, again, begins anew. Thus is moral 
conscience meeting the great eternal issue of duty and 
of responsibility. 

When Lafayette came over to put his sword at the 
service of your new horn liberties; when invaded 
France gathered her energies to stop the foe; when 
the U. S. after thirty-two months of scrupulous neu- 
trality, declared war upon German Imperialism — the 
same question was answered in each case, a question 
of conscience, a question of duty, a question of respon- 
sibility. 

Gentlemen, the same question again we shall have 
to answer when, in a near future, after the victory of 
our arms, we will be called to work towards the organi- 
zation of the world's peace. 

Then, in the same way as we are doing now, we 
shall remember on which side stood the crime, on which 
the right, and, as through the clear conscience of the 
one and of the other, our arms have been given 
strength, so shall our peace aiming decisions be given 
value. 

To our soldiers who have been fighting through 
three whole years, to your soldiers who are soon to 
fight side by side with ours, (applause), let us go on 
telling steadily again and again why they are fight- 
ing: let us, in this way, keep up their moral 
strength, which is not less necessary to our democra- 
cies than material strength, let us remind them that 
there has been in Europe a nation who, though enjoy- 
ing an overfulness of all the riches of peace, with un- 

[30] 



Address by M. Tardieu 

ceasing guile, planned war, willed war and let it loose. 

Unceasingly' let us bring back to our memory the 
years, in which. Germany forced war upon a peace- 
willing world and deliberately doomed millions of 
young lives to death. 

How many sacrifices, though, had been accepted 
by all the neighbors of Germany in order to keep 
peace. 

In order to keep that peace which they deemed to 
be the most precious of their possessions, the Russians 
had allowed the annexation of Bosnia & Herzegovina 
by Austria Hungary to take place, the French had 
given over to Germany part of their Congo Colony. 
This failed to satisfy Germany. Aggression was de- 
cided by her. 

Day after day, hour after hour, she prepared, while, 
through their insufficient preparations, as shown at 
the beginning of war, her present adversaries have evi- 
denced how deep, how generous had been their faith 
in peace. 

And whenever the Germans should be bold enough 
to contradict this and to state that we have willed war, 
let us answer simply by quoting facts, and let us point 
out, in August 1914, Russia without rifles, France with- 
out heavy artillery and Great Britain's army of six 
divisions. 

Gentlemen, those have willed war who had not 
neglected anything which would enable them to make 
war. These have not willed war who, not believing 
war possible, did neglect to prepare. 

This ought to be restated again and again, if we 
are expecting the soldiers on the battlefield to be 
clearly conscious of fulfilling the most sacred duty. 

We have assembled today to celebrate the memory 
of the great man who volunteered to come over here 
and to fight in your ranks because he was under orders 
from his own conscience. Faithful to the example 

[31] 



Address by M. Tardieu 

which he set for us, let us now declare and proclaim 
to the world the transparent clearness of our right. 

Let us fasten the culprit to his own crime, and as he 
does still dare to ask what are our war aims, let us 
answer, as did Lafayette, as did the President in his 
last message, that we have one aim only: to prevent 
any possible reiteration of the crime and in this way. 
to lay the foundation of the world's peace. (Applause.) 

At the conclusion of the exercises, the "Star 
Spangled Banner" was played. 






[32] 




X 

H 

« 

W 
M 

W 
H 

Oh 

w 

CO 

o 

O 
O 

y. 

W 
H 

< 

W 



u 

h 

<: 



?, c 



[33] 



On the steps of City Hall, New York after the Lafayette 

Day exercises on the afternoon of 

September (itli, 1!M7. 

(Left to right ) 

First Row: Geo. T. Wilson, Admiral Usher, l\ S. 
N., Judge Willard Bartlett, Chairman of City Hall 
Celebration, Mr. Andre Tardieu, High Commissioner 
of the French Republic, principal guest of Honor, 
Mayor Mitchel, (Ion. Leclercq, head of Belgian Military 
Mission, Commander dv Blanpre, French Naval At- 
tache, F. B. Stevenson and Mr. Watkins. 

Second Row: Lieut. Col. Campbell Stuart, of the 
Canadian Army, British Military Attache, Comman- 
der Blackwood, British Xaval Attache, Borough Pros. 
Marks, Mr. Gaston de Pellerin dv Latouche, Mr. Mau- 
rice Casenave, Mr. Gaston Liebert, Consul General of 
France, Marquis de Polignac, Gen. Hoyle, Command- 
ing at Governor's Island, Maurice Leon, Acting Chair- 
man N. Y. Lafayette Day Committee, Major O.sterrietb 
of Belgian Military Mission, S. U. Berton, Col. Oran- 
owsky and Lieut. Smirnoff of the Russian Army. 

Third Row: (J. L. LeBlanc, C. ('live Bayley, British 
Consul General, Col. Claudon of French General Staff, 
Col. Binda and Lieut, di Paoli of Italian Army, Mr. 
Nettement, French Consul, R. Fulton Cutting, Col. 
Simpson, V. S. A., Richard Aldrich and Robert Oly- 
phant. 

Among those in the top Row: Oscar P. Cauchois, 
Dr. Carroll Dunham, Carlisle Norwood, (lias. Stewart 
Davison, John (i. Agar, Lieut. Commander Wilcox, 
IT. S. X., ex-Ambassador Elkus, Stephen II. Olin, Bou- 
dinot Keith, Hon. Henry Van Dyke, principal speaker 
at. City Hall, Dr. John H. Finley, State Commr. of 
Education and dames Stillman, Hon. Pros, of N. Y. 
Lafayette Day Committee. 

[34] 




[35] 



Address by THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR 

at the Lafayette Day Banquet, New York, 
September 6, 1917. 



One hundred and sixty years ago to-day, there was 
happiness in an old fortified manor in Auvergne; the 
chimes of the little village church pealed forth; the 
villagers were rejoicing; the family forgot for one day 
its grievous loss, for it was in mourning. The lord of 
the place had been killed a few weeks before, charging 
the Germans at the head of his grenadiers, dying 
young, a boy of 25, like most men of his family, but 
dying for the defence of his land on a day of victory. 

The family, as often before, was threatened With 
extinction, when a child had been born which was taken 
with great glee to the church, and the little thing was 
pompously registered as consisting in the "very high 
and powerful lord, my lord Marie Joseph Paul Yves 
Roch Gilbert Dumotier de la Fayette". 

Outside the castle and village the event passed of 
course unnoticed. 

In the old world and in the new, the anniversary is 
now observed; from the early hours this morning, an 
American flag, a replica of the first one with the 13 
stars, given by the City of Independence, Philadelphia, 
has been waving on the belfry of the Hotel de Ville 
Paris, and we convene once more in great New York 
at the call of a committee of citizens and of France- 
America, joining in thought the villagers of long ago, 
rejoicing with them for the birth of that little thing 
which, in spite of its being so high and powerful, knew 
only, on that auspicious 6th of 'September, how to cry. 

A great change has been wrought, which will go 
increasing as the consequences of events continue to 
develop: for on that day had been born a fearless, 

[37] 



Address by the French Ambassador 

honest man, in whom every noble thought awakened 
enthusiasm, a fit friend for a Washington, a man who 
knew the value of a pledge and who, from the day he 
was able to think, pledged his life to the service of 
Liberty. This general pledge he renewed when first 
touching American ground in 1777, he vowed, as he 
says in his memoirs, to win or die here with the cause 
of Liberty. 

On the sacredness of a pledge mainly rests the 
whole fabric of civilization. Let that disappear, and 
we go back to barbarism and the rule of sheer force. 
Homo homini lupus, Plautus has sneeringly said. 
What permits us to live otherwise than like wild ani- 
mals is that inward feeling wmich early allowed both 
the stronger and the weaker to freely come together 
and say: let us be friends, and caused them to keep 
their word. There is scarcely a better test of the 
progress of mankind towards happiness and peaceful 
development than the degree of observance of the 
pledged word freely given. To the appetites, ambi- 
tions, furies of the beast that was in us, an invisible 
barrier is opposed, stronger, among honest men and 
honest nations, than walls and guns, a barrier con- 
sisting in a word, a pledged word. 

From this results between nations peace, trust, 
joyful development; from the reverse results — what 
we see to-day, a state of things so fearful that the 
world has never seen the like, even in the days of 
those Huns on whose barbarity our enemies cheerfully 
pretend to model theirs; those Huns could spare a 
city; at the request of its bishop, they spared Troves; 
their followers of to-day cannot spare a child, a woman, 
a wounded soldier, a church, witness the shelling from 
the air of the British and French open cities, the kill- 
ing of Miss Cavell, the dropping of bombs, last week, 
on our hospitals back of Verdun, witness the "Lusi- 



[38] 



Address by the French Ambassador 

tania". They, even take the trouble of killing trees, 
so great is their lust for killing. 

The tragedy of it all is that since we are averse, 
even when the day of victory comes, to ruling our 
enemies and to turning against them their principles, 
for we love ours, no end is possible save by taking the 
word of those men for whom the pledged word is noth- 
ing, is a trifle, a bauble, something to make fun of. 
"We cannot", the President has said in his answer to 
the Pope, "take the word of the present rulers of 
Germany as a guarantee of anything that is to en- 
dure." 

We had premonitions of what has happened, but 
we could not believe them. Just as the Savern inci- 
dent was premonitory, and it has been justly said by 
an American paper that Louvain was Savern written 
in larger letters, so we had a foretaste of what the Ger- 
mans think of pledges when they passed, as a proper 
thing to do, their monstrous law of July 1913, whose 
article 25 permits any of them to swear allegiance to a 
foreign country and thus become naturalized; and to 
secretly forswear himself before his Consul who thus 
becomes his accomplice, and to remain a subject of the 
Kaiser. 

We had no right to be surprised after that and yet 
we were, so appalling was the regression toward bar- 
barism, when the German Chancellor uttered his fa- 
mous statements to the Ambassador of Great Britain, 
on the day of the unspeakable crime, the invasion of 
Belgium ". . . Just for a word, neutrality . . . 
just for a scrap of paper . . . ", said the champion 
of Barbarism, for which a word is nothing, a word 
has no force. "I said", the champion of Great Britain 
and of civilization wrote, giving to his Government an 
account of the interview, "that, in the same way as he 
and Herr von Jagow wished me to understand that, 
for stategical reasons, it was a matter of life and death 

[39] 



Address by the French Ambassador 

to Germany to advance through Belgium ... so 
I would wish him to understand that it was . 
a matter of life and death for the honor of Great 
Britain that she should keep her solemn engagement 
. to defend Belgium's neutrality." And as, on 
behalf of barbarity, the other spoke of consequences, 
the answer was : "I hinted to His Excellency as plainly 
as I could that fear of consequences could hardly be 
regarded as an excuse for breaking solemn engage- 
ments." 

Here spoke truth, and honesty, and civilization; 
here the future answered the past. For having spoken 
those timely words, the name of my friend Sir Edward 
Goschen will ever be gratefully remembered. 

And what shall we say of the Belgian King and of 
Belgium's answer, safeguarded, as that country 
thought she was, by solemn treaties, and by German 
pledges just renewed the year before? "Belgian neu- 
trality", Secretary of State Jagow had declared to 
the Reichstag on April 29th, 1913, "is provided for by 
International conventions, and Germany is determined 
to respect those conventions." 

Requested to allow a "friendly" invasion of her 
territory, a "friendly" violation of her neutrality, Bel- 
gium answered in the very words of 'Sir Edward 
Goshen, for on every lip honesty speaks the same 
language: "The Belgian Government, if they were to 
accept the proposals submitted to them, would sacri- 
fice the honor of the nation and betray their duty 
towards Europe", and to the answer of their Minister 
they added that of the guns of glorious Liege. 

And what shall we say of America's answer? for 
her turn was to come; it could not be otherwise. All 
felt this, excepting that enemy who had thought Bel- 
gium would submit, and Belgium had answered at 
Liege; that England would keep aloof, and she had 
barred the sea and sent to France that admirable army 

[40] 



Address by the French Ambassador 

which has ceaseless grown in numbers and efficiency; 
that France would be crushed, and she answered at 
the Marne and at Verdun; that Japan would be an 
on-looker, and Japan answered at Kiao Tchao; that 
Italy would join them, but Italy, one of the foster- 
mothers of civilization, joined civilization against 
Barbarism. The American answer was a memorable 
one ; the words of the President, like the guns at Lex- 
ington, were heard round the world. 

When the man whom we honor to-day, when his 
nation had come to the rescue of the struggling colon- 
ists, we had done a thing unexampled in the annals of 
the world. We had fought for a sentiment and an 
idea, debarring ourselves in advance from any ma- 
terial advantage, refusing special privileges which 
were offered us in a commercial treaty, for we wanted 
nothing that America could not grant as well to any 
other nation, the English included. Canada was 
offered us after Yorktown, and we refused. 

This was unexampled then and had never been 
imitated since. It has been now. In the same spirit, 
at the call of the President, this nation, whose heart 
had been from the first with the defenders of liberty, 
has taken sides with them and will continue until "the 
world is safe for democracy ". "We have", said the 
President in his immortal address of April 2, "no 
selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no 
dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no 
material compensation for the sacrifices we shall 
freely make. We are but one of the champions of the 
rights of mankind." 

These words have been heard round the world; 
mankind has made them its own: East and West, 
North and South, it has aligned itself with those who 
trust in pledges and in the sacredness of treaties; 
from noble-minded South American Republics to dis- 
tant highly-cultured China. 

[41] 



Address' by the French Ambassador 

When will the end come? It can come only when 
the enemy understands, when he sees the evil he has 
caused, and regrets it, when he is ashamed. The 
change must not be merely one on paper, one in the 
laws in his country, but one in his mind. Some favor- 
able signs are already visible; they do not consist in 
the word peace being repeated, as it is, here or there, 
but in incipient confessions. A German General, a 
member of the supplementary General Staff, stated 
the other day, we are told, that the story of the French 
preparing to invade Belgium was a pure invention and 
that, to our great material damage (to our honor, in 
truth), we had actually mobilized towards the regular 
frontier. Only a few days ago we had from the lips 
of the new German Secretary of State the declaration 
that "a policy based on might alone and not on right 
is doomed to failure from the beginning". A good 
reading of history this, and a good sign; a good way 
of reasoning too. We always felt sure of the issue 
because one who, like us, possesses both might and 
right has more than one who, according to his own 
estimation, has only might. Sir Edward Goschen had 
heard different words three years ago. 

When peace comes the situation will be the same too 
as at the time of the War of Independence, and with 
the change of one word, President instead of King, 
the head of our Republic will be able to write to your 
Ambassador in Paris what Washington wrote to my 
predecessor La Luzerne in 1783: "The magnanimous 
and disinterested scale of action which that great 
nation has exhibited to the world during this war and 
at the conclusion of the peace, will insure to your 
[President] and nation that reputation which will be 
of more consequence to them than every other con- 
sideration." 

We must in the meantime pursue our common task, 
following the example of our common ancestors. The 

[42] 



Address by the French Ambassador 

visit of Lafayette and of Kochambeau to these shores 
is now being returned ; and a grand and moving scene 
it must have been the other day, in the Picpus ceme- 
tery in Paris, when the erect form of General Pershing 
was seen standing before a tomb sacred to every 
American, and those words were heard: "Lafayette, 
nous voila!" Lafayette, here we are! What you did 
for our country, we are going to do for yours. 

An English illustrated paper presented the other 
day a double picture ; one part showed an old fashioned 
small ship disappearing towards the horizon, and it 
was called "the sailing of the Mayflower". The other 
was an actual photograph showing innumerable young 
Americans, alert and plucky, alighting somewhere in 
England, from a huge United States' transport; and 
it was called: "the return of the Mayflower". 

We too, of the French nation, might print a similar 
double picture : one part showing the small ship with 
two guns La Victoire, which carried Lefayette; the 
other part representing its return in that long suc- 
cession of ships which are bringing to France, for the 
first time in history, American citizens who, like 
Lafayette on his landing here, have pledged their lives 
in the cause of liberty. And, from the name of the old 
craft, that picture would be called: "The return of 
Victory". 



[43] 



LAFAYETTE DAY EXERCISES 

Held at the Statue of Lafayette, Union Square 
New York City, September 6th, 1917 



At eleven o'clock A. M. September 6th, 1917, exer- 
cises were held at the Statue of Lafayette in Union 
Square, which had been appropriately decorated for 
the occasion as had also the Washington Statue nearby. 
The Marine Band from the United States land battle- 
ship "Recruit", a naval recruiting station built to 
resemble a battleship, located in Union Square a short 
distance from the Lafayette Statue, followed by a 
battalion of uniformed naval recruits from the "Re- 
cruit" and two hundred Boy Scouts of America from 
the Manhattan Division, marched to the Statue playing 
the Marsellaise, and drew up in front of the platform 
erected to the west of the Monument. While the band 
was playing, Daniel Carter Beard, National Scout 
Commissioner, and Alrick H. Man, President of the 
Manhattan Council, Boy Scouts of America, placed a 
large wreath on the Statue. There had previously been 
placed thereon wreaths from the following Societies: 
Aeronautic Society of America; American Defense 
Society, Inc.; Daughters of the American Revolution; 
Descendants of Signers of Declaration of Indepen- 
dence; National Security League; Order of Founders 
and Patriots of America and the Society of the Cincin- 
nati. Delegates were present on the platform represent- 
ing these Societies. A crow T d of several thousand per- 
sons, gathered around the platform and statue, followed 
the exercises with close attention and manifested its 
patriotic appreciation of the occasion by repeated ap- 
plause of the sentiments expressed. 

The Chairman of the Committee in charge of the 
exercises, Lawrence F. Abbot, Esq., introduced the 
speaker of the day, Mr. John Quinn. 

[44] 




u — 






o £ 



hW 



U 



c o 
oh 



hJ 



■5 -^ 



so 

X r- 






[45] 



Address by MR. JOHN QUINN 

I am happy to utter here, as the representative of 
the Lafayette Day Citizens' Committee of the City of 
New York, a few words in honor of the memory of 
Lafayette. 

I hope that Lafayette Day will soon come to be 
celebrated as a national American holiday. 

Four great democracies are now engaged in war 
with Germany, in a sacred crusade for the protection 
of life and the saving of liberty. We are gathered 
here, on this anniversary of the birth of Lafayette, 
which also is the anniversary of the great French 
victory at the Marne, to do honor to Lafayette. 
Lafayette is the very type of eternal youth. He has 
the happy fate of having his name enshrined in history 
as one of the noblest examples of shining youth and 
high chivalry, as the champion of the oppressed, as the 
soldier of liberty. He is the darling and pride of the 
great French republic, and the admired hero of our 
republic, whose independence he helped to achieve. 
(Applause.) 

As an American of pure Irish descent, I am happy 
to recall here that the bonds of feeling between Ireland 
and France are old and sacred ones. (Applause.) No 
Irishman ever forgets the heroic achievements of the 
Irish Brigade in France. They are among the undying 
glories of the Irish race. Irishmen all over the world 
recall the encouragement and the help that one of the 
gratest Irishmen that ever lived, Theobold Wolfe Tone, 
received from France. Irishmen are glad to remember 
also that Eobert Emmet would have been aided by 
France in the same way. 

The racial affinities of Ireland and France are many. 
The habits of thought and the passion for liberty are 
the same among Frenchmen and Irishmen. The old 
tradition of Ireland's loyalty to France is to-day car- 

[47] 



Address by Mr. John Quinn 

ried on by the thousands and thousands of brave 
soldiers of Irish blood who are fighting in France 
shoulder to shoulder with Englishmen and Frenchmen, 
fighting for the life and liberty of Belgium and France. 
Nay, more; those thousands and thousands of loyal 
Irishmen are fighting not merely for the life and lib- 
erty of France and Belgium, but for the liberty of the 
whole world. (Applause.) 

I am glad to stand here and bear testimony, and 
the Irish-Americans who take part in this celebration 
unite with me in testifying, that Americans of Irish 
birth and descent generally are heart and soul loyal 
to the Flag in this war. (Great applause.) They be- 
lieve in the war. They know ours is a just and right- 
eous war. (Applause.) They are loyally sending 
their sons by thousands to the war. (Applause.) 
They want no sham peace with a people who worship 
the doctrine of blood and iron and of might above 
right, no peace based upon fraudulent German political 
reforms, no peace based upon any mere German pledge 
or promise whatever. "We want no peace until the be- 
lievers in the religion of blood and iron and of might 
above right have surrendered. That symbolic battle- 
ship represents our determination to meet the Ger- 
mans with the only argument that they can under- 
stand. (Applause.) 

In a war in which chivalry and honor in our enemies 
are unknown, we proudly rejoice in the chivalry and 
unstained honor of Lafayette. He splendidly typifies 
the chivalry and honor of the great nation, one of 
whose allies we are proud and glad to be. 

General Pershing a few days ago, at the tomb of 
Lafayette in France, spoke these stirring words: 
"Lafayette, Nous voila" : "Lafayette, we are here." 
To that I add these words: "Lafayette, we are send- 
ing more and yet more of our bravest and our best to 

[48] 



Address by Mr. John Quinn 

France. They are coming, coming — coming a million 
strong I * ' ( Great applause. ) 

After Mr. Quinn 's speech the Marine Band played 
the Star Spangled Banner. 

The arrangements for the exercises at Union 
Square were in charge of Mr. Edward Harding, Chair- 
man of the Executive Board of the National Committee 
of Patriotic and Defense Societies. 



[49] 



LAFAYETTE DAY EXERCISES 

Held at the Lafayette Memorial, Prospect Park, 
Brooklyn, September 6th, 1917, at 10.30 A. M. 

Hon. Lewis H. Pounds, President of the Borough 
of Brooklyn when as chairman he announced the 
holding of Lafayette Day exercises in Brooklyn, said: 
4 ' This is Brooklyn's opportunity to do honor to Gen- 
eral Lafayette's memory and pay her respects to our 
great sister republic of Prance. We can never forget 
the visit of the French Mission on May 10, when the 
Lafayette Memorial was dedicated." 

The exercises were preceded by a band concert by 
the Naval Militia Band featured by French and Ameri- 
can music. After a short speech of welcome by Presi- 
dent Pounds, Henry Rowley sang the "Marseillaise"; 
the Rev. Dr. Nehemiah Boynton, chaplain of the Thir- 
teenth Coast Defense Command, delivered the oration; 
Mr. Rowley then sang "The Battle Hymn of the Re- 
public." M. Stephane Lauzanne, who is in the United 
States as member of a mission of the French Govern- 
ment, then spoke. 



Address by MR. STEPHANE LAUZANNE 

Mr. Chairman, 
Ladies and Gentlemen: 

It is an honor for me to address such an audience 
on such a day. This is a great day. This is a day when 
we celebrate together the services of Lafayette and 
Joffre — the man of Yorktown, the man of the Marne. 
We celebrate American victory and French victory, 
but above all the victory of liberty. 

Before I came to this land, I knew already that 
you felt here the same spirit of liberty, that yours was 
the same democracy tand that the same colors were in 
your flag as in ours. Today I know something more. 
I know today that you have the same heart beating 

[50J 



Address by Mr. Stephane Lauzarme 

for the same cause. You gave us your hand — the clean 
hand of a free people. We gave you ours — the clean 
hand of an unsubjected people — and that clasp shall 
never be broken. 

That ' wretched' war, as so many Americans call it, 
France never wanted it, never prepared it, never de- 
clared it. 

France never wanted War. — If there could be iany 
doubt in any mind about those who wanted War, I 
would recall only one fact. ... I would recall that 
Mr. Giolitti, prime Minister of Italy, recently revealed, 
that in 1913, — one year before any Austrian Archduke 
was assassinated — Italy was offered by her two Allies, 
Germany and Austria, to attack the little kingdom of 
Serbia, to invade it, to exterminate it and to have a 
share in its spoils. . . . Here are those who 
wanted war! . 

France never prepared War. — If any one desires 
to know what nations prepared War, he will remember 
that from 1883 to 1893 — twenty years before the 
War — whereas the increase of the military expenses 
in France was only of 70%, in England 55%, in Russia 
of 97%, in Germany the increase was of 229%, and he 
will remember that in 1913 when France spent 120 
millions in War material Germany spent 700 millions. 

There you have those who prepared War. 

France never declared War. — Not only did she not 
declare War, but she seconded every proposal which 
could prevent War from being declared; proposal of 
international conference, proposal of arbitration be- 
fore The Hague aribunal. All these proposals were 
rejected by Germany. Not only did France not de- 
clare War, but she did what never any nation had done 
before, and on the very eve of the war she withdrew 
her own troops, on her own soil, five miles behind her 
own borders. 

Those who declared War are those who, on August 
3rd, 1914, at 6.45 P. M. sent a gentleman calling him- 

[51] 



Address by Mr. Stephane Lauzanne 

self Baron de Schoen and being German Ambassador 
in Paris, called on the French Foreign Office land hand- 
ed an official lette, saying that "as French military 
aviators had thrown bombs on the railway near Nurem- 
berg, the German Empire considered itself in a state 
of war ivith France." 

Each term of this letter has proved subsequently to 
be untrue; and on May 18 of last year, a German 
puglication, the "Deutsche Medizinische Woschen- 
schrift" published a letter from the German Dr. 
Schwalbe, burgnester of the town of Nuremberg, 
formally declaring that "the rumor that bombs had 
been thrown by French aviators on Nuremberg or its 
railway was utterly untrue." So that War was not 
only declared upon France but was declared on a false 
pretext. 

And, now, let me state once more what is at stake 
in this World's War. 

If, since thirty-two months, France is bleeding land 
struggling, fighting and suffering, it is not for money, 
for Domination, or for Territories. It is for some- 
thing much higher and much nobler. It is to restore in 
Europe a spirit of Liberty, of Humanity and, above 
all, of Respect of International Law. That spirit will 
be restored only when the spirit of Domination, of 
Brutality and of Aggression, symbolized by the Prus- 
sian militarism, will be extirpated from Europe. That 
spirit must go. It will go when the people who are 
animated by it will feel that they have been beaten ; 

When they will realize that they are not the strong- 
est, but the weakest; 

When they will understand that they have not to 
dictate terms of peace but to agree to terms of peace ; 

When they will understand that they have not to 
offer, as an aim, not to annihilate other nations but 
that they have to respect the independence of every 
nation, big or small, as a supreme and imperative law. 

For that we will fight to the end, whatever may be 
the sufferings of the Nation, whatever may be the hard- 
ness of Destiny. 

[52] 



Address by Mr. Stephane Lauzanne 

In the dark days of the battle of Verdun, General 
de Castelnau once exclaimed: "The whole French 
race will perish on the battlefield rather than submit 
to Germany.'" 

This as true today as it was a year ago. We would 
prefer to die than to live in a degraded Humanity and 
Humanity would be degraded if Germany could ever be 
victorious. 

A French statesman, M. Louis Barthou, ex- 
Premier, has summarized the French "etat d'ame" in 
a striking formula, which must be always remembered : 
"All France for all the war." 

Yes, all France, with her children, with her men, 
young and old, with her women, with her dead, for all 
the war. And I may add, all France in all the trenches. 
In the trenches of Verdun, where we had sworn to our- 
selves that, even if we had to give the last drop of our 
blood, Germans would not pass — and the Germans 
have not passed ; in the trenches of Eheims, where in 
the shadow of the glorious mutilated Cathedral we 
have sworn to punish barbarism — and we will punish 
it; in the trenches of the Somme, where with our broth- 
ers-in-iarms of Scotland, of England, of Ireland, of 
Canada, of Australia, of New Zealand, we have grasped 
the aggressors by the throat — and we will not loosen 
the grasp. 

For all the war, whatever may be the length of that 
war, whatever may be the sufferings of the nation, 
whatever may be the hardships imposed by destiny, in 
order that we may punish those who in declaring this 
war have committed a crime against humanity, and 
who in carrying on this war as they have done, with 
every needless cruelty the mind can conceive, have com- 
mitted all the crimes against civilization which it was 
in their power to commit. 

All France for all the war! But the whole of 
France also for the whole victory — for the victory 
which will not alone be the victory of France but also 
the victory of right, of justice, of humanity. 

[53] 




[55] 



LAFAYETTE DAY IN FRANCE 

The account of Lafayette Day 1917 would not be 
complete if it did not include reference to the fact that 
it was observed in France under inspiring circum- 
stances. In Paris the ceremony was held at the Hotel 
de Ville where a replica of the first American flag was 
flown, the gift of the City of Philadelphia. The fol- 
lowing telegram was sent by the head of the Paris 
municipality to Mayor Smith of Philadelphia: 

"Today, the anniversary of the birth of Lafav- 
ette, the flag offered to France by your noble city 
and delivered to the City of Paris by the President 
of the French Republic was raised on our City 
Hall (Hotel de Ville) in the presence of Mr. Sharp, 
the eminent ambassador, delegations of American 
and French officers and delegates of the American 
Eed Cross. On the historical City Hall square 
where so many glorious events of our national 
life have taken place, the Parisian population, 
associating itself with its representatives, greeted 
with enthusiastic cheers your great democracy 
now standing against autocracy and firmly re- 
solved like ourselves to terminate victoriously this 
liberating war. I am its interpreter in expressing 
to Philadelphia sentiments of fraternal sympathies 
of Paris and our dearest wishes that the ancient 
bonds which bind our two countries may be even 
closer." 

The great event in France took place, however, at 
Fere-Champenoise where a decisive — some believe the 
decisive— phase of the Battle of the Marne was fought. 
The President of the French Republic, Premier 
Ribot, Minister of War Painleve, Marshal Joffre, 
General Petain and General Foch were present, 
as also Mr. Chaumet and Mr. Leon Bourgeois. 
The Premier, Mr. Ribot, delivered a superb ad- 
dress which was primarily a national homage to the 

[57] 



Lafayette Day in France 

soldiers of the Marne and their leaders. The address 
ended in the following peroration : 

"May we steel our courage and fortify our will 
at the contact with these memories of the first days 
of the war in which France showed a heroism so 
beautiful and proved that she possessed a spirit 
of unity so admirable. Days of suffering and of 
grief, but also days of victory won over ourselves 
as well as over our enemies, may your image be 
ever before our eyes ; may the heroes of the Marne 
remind us ever of the single duty imposed upon 
us all, to think only of the country and to forget 
our quarrels and divisions. They who have died 
for France, may they teach us to live for her and 
to sacrifice all for her. Thus we will feel raised 
above ourselves to the height of our duties toward 
the country." 

General Foch spoke of the days when his army 
formed the centre of the French Army which the enemy 
sought to pierce between Sezanne and Mailly. He de- 
scribed the situation on the sixth, which was precar- 
ious, and told how on the seventh the Germans were 
attacking him with "a magnificent artillery" which 
did not however dismay the heroes who were holding 
on to the plateau over which shells were raining. He 
described the daring manoeuvre by which the Forty- 
second Division was shifted from the left to the right 
wing in the midst of the battle and how General Gros- 
setti aided by the Moroccan Division succeeded in 
carrying out this movement. He spoke of the Breton 
regiment who, their officers almost all killed and their 
ranks deciminated, did not fall back but asked for new 
officers. He referred to the "fragments" of regiments 
which got together and organized themselves into 
new regiments and on the 9th at 5 o'clock in 

[58] 



Lafayette Day in France 

the evening started their irresistible offensive. 
Then the attack on the Chateau de Mondemont 
with two 75s brought by man-power before the 
gate, the rush of the French through the orchard, 
the flight of the Germans toward the east; with a 
broad gesture General Foch points to the roads, 
the plains, now covered with crops, the immense open- 
air ampitheatre in which the German Army sustained 
the initial and decisive defeat of the great war. As he 
spoke (without any reference to himself) Marshal 
Joffre followed on the map the movement of these 
army "fragments" which triumphed because they 
retained faith, spirit and discipline. It was for the 
President of the French Republic to add a few words 
recalling the admirable work accomplished by the man 
who described the battle. 

On their way to Fere Champenoise the President of 
the French Republic and the Minister of War 
Painleve, as also General Petain and several other 
French generals stopped at the American Field 
headquarters where they were greeted by Generals 
Pershing and Sibert. A review was held on the 
top of a plateau. The appearance of our troops is 
described as magnificent; their bands played the Mar- 
seillaise as the French president arrived. After the 
review, as the men stood at ease, all of the officers of 
the Expeditionary forces were detached and assembled 
in a semi-circle about the President and his party. 

General Pershing stepped forward and addressed 
them briefly: "We are being paid a great honor to- 
day", he said, "in the visit of the President of the 
Republic to which we have come to do our share in the 
fight for liberty. This happens also to be the anni- 
versary of the beginning of the battle of the Marne, a 
day which will ever stand out in the history of tlio 
world. It is peculiarly fitting that this army should 
be so honored on this day. for I am sure it will <rivo us 

[59J 



Lafayette Day in France 

a still greater feeling of patriotism and loyalty for the 
principles for which we shall fight and will instill into 
us a still higher spirit for the accomplishment of the 
task which is before us. It will make us, the advance 
guard of America's forces, feel still more keenly the 
responsibility that has been placed upon us." 
President Poincare then spoke : 

"It makes me very happy to be able to bring 
today the congratulations of the French republic 
to this very fine army commanded by General 
Pershing and which I have just seen marching 
before me in such a magnificent manner. It filled 
me with emotion at seeing so many gallant officers 
and so many brave soldiers who braved the dan- 
gers of the sea to come to the soil of France to 
defend the common cause of the allies and to con- 
secrate their lives, if need be to the common cause 
of liberty. As President Wilson said the other 
day, we are all fighting for the same ends and the 
interests of the free United States are at stake 
everywhere the allied armies are at grips with the 
enemy, whether it be in Flanders, before Verdun, 
or on the Isonzo. 

"Today in all of the great cities of America is 
being celebrated the anniversary of the birth of 
Lafayette. Today also I will visit the tombs of 
the heroes of the battle of the Marne, the men fallen 
in the advance guard of the armies, which are now 
fighting for right and civilization. Thus our two 
countries are celebrating today two common anni- 
versaries which must draw them still more closely 
together and inspire them in the struggle in which 
they are engaged." 

The president referred briefly to the gift of a flag 
from the mayor of Philadelphia to the municipal coun- 
cil of Paris and concluded his address with the cry: 
"Long live President Wilson! Long live the free 
United States!" 

[60] 



Lafayette Day in France 

President Poincare was warmly applauded and then 
the officers gave three cheers and a tiger. The cheer- 
ing was taken up by the troops in the distance and 
continued while the president and his party were leav- 
ing the reviewing field. 



[61] 



LAFAYETTE DAY IN THE UNITED STATES 
OUTSIDE OF NEW YORK 

The following is a summary nf the celebrations 
held in the United States outside of New York: 

Philadelphia: The celebration took place on the same 
ground over which Lafayette passed following his 
appointment as a major general of the Continental 
armies and began at about two o'clock p. m. follow- 
ing the arrival of Ambassador Jusserand. 

Philadelphia was decked with the stars and 
stripes and the tricolor of France, as also the flags 
of Great Britain, Italy and our other Allies in the 
great war. The Ambassador was escorted from 
the station to Independence Hall (in front of which 
a platform had been erected for the exercises) by 
Col. J. Campbell Gilmore, Col. John Gribbel, presi- 
dent of the Union League ; Mr. Victor Fonteneau, 
acting French Vice-Consul ; Charles Bailey, Mrs. 
Cornelius Stevenson, chairman of the French war 
relief committee, and two battalions of the First 
Regiment Infantry, commanded by Major David 
Simpson, and the Veteran Corps of the First Regi- 
ment. Their progress from Broad Street down 
Chestnut to Independence Hall was marked by a 
continued series of cheers and ovations. Before 
the State House Col. Gribbel formally presented 
the Ambassador and Mme. Jusserand to the re- 
ceiving party, Col Gribbel being chairman of the 
ceremonies. The Reception Committee at Inde- 
pendence Hall included E. J. Cattell, representing 
the Mayor of Philadelphia; Brigadier General 
Waller, General R. Dale Benson, Dimner Beeber, 
Cyrus Borgner, Benjamin P. Opdike, D. Newlin 
Fell, Joseph P. Bailey, James Pollock, Francis B. 
Reeves, John Wood, Jr., Thomas M. Thompson, 
Alfred John Miller and Charles W. Alexander. 

[65] 



Lafayette Day in Philadelphia 

Banners of the Societe Francaise of Philadelphia 
and emblems of other associations devoted to per- 
petuating the friendship between France and the 
United States were carried during the celebration. 

Thousands of spectators crowded around the 
historic home of American liberty as the Ambas- 
sador's party, passing through Independence Hall 
beyond the Liberty Bell, made their way to the 
speaker's stand. Platoons of infantry in olive- 
drab service uniforms were lined up before the 
steps where the flags were to be unfurled and as 
the speakers took their seats on the platform the 
mass of spectators spread almost to the Walnut 
Street boundary of the square. 

After the "Marseillaise" was sung, Ambas- 
sador Jusserand made a brief address in which he 
said that brotherly love, the symbol of Philadel- 
phia, and the clarion call of "Independence" 
would be the future watchwords of nations. Ad- 
dressing the veterans he spoke of the American 
army as "soldiers for France and for America 
who will be received in France with the same love 
that followed Lafayette wherever he went in this 
country. ' ' He added : ' ' This Hall is indeed to me 
a sacred spot; when Lafayette came here the bell 
had shortly before sounded liberty for the whole 
world. Today we are all fighting for that liberty. 
We want it for everyone, even for those who do not 
like it. The time will come when they will learn 
to like it and perhaps that time is not so far away 
as they think." 

Mr. Henry Winthrop Hardon, representing the 
Lafayette Day National Committee, then read the 
messages which the Committee had received from 
President Poincare, Marshal Joffre, Admiral Sir 
David Beatty, commander of the British Grand 
Fleet, General Pershing and Ambassador Sharp, 

[G6] 



Lafayette Day in Philadelphia 

which were being read simultaneously at the exer- 
cises held in City Hall, New York. The text of 
these messages will be found in this book in the 
report of the New York exercises. 

Hon. John M. Patterson, the principal speaker, 
was then heard. He declared that ' ' the part which 
Lafayette played in the American cause was great 
enough and grand enough to make his name live 
as long as men and women shall delight in honor- 
ing the brave." He added: 

"In 1787 we find Lafayette doing good 
service in behalf of those who were being 
persecuted because of their religion. We find 
him actively interested in plans to abolish 
slavery. We find him demanding, and he 
alone signing the demand, that the King in- 
voke the States General. Later we find him 
vice-president of the National Assembly, and 
on July 11, 1789, presenting a declaration of 
rights, modelled on our own Declaration of In- 
dependence. 

"From 1789 until the end of the constitu- 
tional monarchy in 1792, the history of La- 
fayette is largely the history of France. When 
the plain people of France rose up and became 
just as cruel and just as lawless in their an- 
archy as the nobles had been in their tyrrany, 
Lafayette stood forth and defied the mob with 
the same courage with which he had defied the 
King. 

"It was he who rescued Queen Marie 
Antoinette from the hands of the populace on 
October 5th and 6th, 1789. It was he who 
saved many humbler victims who had been 
condemned to death. 

"We find him in the Assembly, pleading 
for the abolition of arbitrary imprisonment; 
lifting his voice in behalf of religious toler- 
ance; advocating popular representation; de- 
manding the establishment of trial by jury, 

[67] 



Lafayette Day in Philadelphia 

asking for the gradual emancipation of slaves; 
vindicating the freedom of the press; request- 
ing the abolition of titles of nobility, and the 
suppression of privileged orders. 

"Lafayette was not only fascinated by the 
genius of Napoleon, but was, of course, filled 
with a deep sense of gratitude for what Bona- 
parte had done in having him released from 
captivity. The patriotism of Lafayette and 
his love of liberty was greater even than his 
gratitude. 

"He not only typifies unselfish patriotism, 
but he also stands forth as an example of con- 
stancy, of a determination to remain faithful 
to principles at any sacrifice. No man has 
been more constant in his public career than 
Lafayette. He remained the man of 1789 to 
the day of his death. Offers of power from 
the Jacobins failed to swerve him from his 
principles. The Directory was unable to drive 
him by permitting his return to France from 
exile. While other public men waited and 
bowed at Napoleon's court, then deserted him 
for Louis XVIII, and then waited and bowed 
again at Napoleon's court in 1815, and then 
turned their backs on the Little Corporal in 
the hour of his adversity, to again seek favors 
of the Bourbon King, Lafayette alone re- 
mained true to France and true to himself. 

' ' Let the young men of this day and gene- 
ration try to emulate his unselfish devotion to 
liberty. Men do not live to die in vain. What 
does the life of Lafayette teach? I should 
say that it teaches us that the common indi- 
vidual man is the sublimest asset of the world, 
that a republic is a final form of human so- 
ciety, where political power rests, or should 
rest, on fitness alone, and where the sole ob- 
ject of such power should be the public good. ' ' 
The address of C. Stuart Patterson follows: 

"Day by day our boys, the flower of 
American manhood are sailing, proud to fight, 

[68] 



Lafayette Day in Philadelphia 

side by side with the splendid soldiers, who, 
under the banners of France, England, Italy, 
Russia and Belgium, have held the foe at bay 
since the fateful days of August, 1914. Be- 
hind our men-at-arms is the nation, more than 
100,000,000 strong, men too young to fight 
now, men too old to fight and, last, but not 
least, women, all united, all devoted, all de- 
termined that every moral and every material 
resource shall be lavishly poured forth in this 
greatest of battles, the battle of mercy against 
cruelty and the battle of right against might. 

"No one dare doubt that the victory will 
be won. It may not come this year. It may 
not come for many years. But come it will. 
And when the angel of peace shall rise from 
out of the carnage and spread her wings over 
the world, the fair lands of France and Bel- 
gium will be relieved of the polluting foot- 
steps of the invader, industry will turn from 
works of destruction to construction and the 
sun of prosperity will rise again after the long 
night of horror. But alas! Nothing will 
bring to life on earth the brave souls who 
have died that their nations might live or 
those other brave souls who have been brut- 
ally murdered on land or at sea. 

"They must not have died in vain. It 
must be made certain that their sacrifice has 
not been useless. Every reasonable being ear- 
nestly wants a speedy end to the carnage ; but 
that end, to be final, must be a peace, not a 
truce. No real and lasting peace can be based 
upon a compromise. It can only rest securely 
upon the decisive and conclusive triumphs of 
right. As Mr. Lincoln said in 1864, when 
timorous souls who cried for peace at am 
price assailed him. 'We accepted this war, 
we did not begin it; we accepted it for an ob- 
ject, and when that object is accomplished the 
war will end; and I hope to God it never will 
end until that object is accomplished. ' 

[69J 



Lafayette Day in Philadelphia 

"Every word of that masterly statement is 
applicable to our situation today. Our object 
in this war is to make certain that no nation 
shall ever again be able to terrorize the habit- 
able globe, and at its will to inflict upon man- 
kind the losses, the suffering, the miseries of 
modern warfare; and until that object be ac- 
complished this war will not end. 

"I cannot conclude without paying my 
humble tribute of respect and admiration to 
the heroic soldiers and the not less heroic peo- 
ple of France. Nothing can better typify the 
unconquered and unconquerable France of the 
republic than the story of the mother bending 
with sobs over the body of her son fallen on 
the field of honor, and then proudly rising to 
her full height and saying with flashing eyes 
and clenched fists, 'C'est pour la patrie.' 

"In that is the needed lesson for us today. 
Never in our history has there been a time 
when it was so imperatively a duty as it is 
now for everyone to censecrate onesself, all 
that one has and all that one can do to the 
service of our country, to whose free institu- 
tions we owe all that we have and are. 

"And now, in the words of Mr. Lincoln, 

'with firmness in the right, as God gives us 

to see the right' let us strive to finish the work 

we are in * * * to care for him who shall 

have borne the battle and for his widow and 

orphan, and to do all which may achieve a 

just and lasting peace." 

When the signal was given for the raising of 

the two flags, there was a stiffening of the lines of 

soldiers ranged about the flag-draped platform. 

The white ropes had been attached to a point high 

up on the original bell tower and with the first 

blast of a bugle eager hands reached out, the 

ropes tightened, and while the American emblem 

floated upward the "Star Spangled Banner" was 

played. Higher, higher the flag rode, until the 

[70] 



Lafayette Day in Philadelphia 

first glint of the Lafayette emblem, directly below, 
followed the one with the forty-eight stars. The 
name of Lafayette was seen imprinted across the 
top of the thirteen-star flag, and the cheers went 
upward until the two emblems of Freedom were 
flung aloft. 



[71] 




[73] 



Lafayette Day in San Francisco 

3an Francisco: The celebration in San Francisco was 
participated in by the municipal and federal au- 
thorities in the City represented respectively by 
Mayor James Rolfe, Jr. and Postmaster Charles 
W. Fay, and was attended by a delegation of the 
French High Commission to the United States 
headed by Mr. Edouard DeBilly accompanied by 
Col. James Martin, Capt. E. J. D. Rouvier and 
Lieut. Henri de Courtivron of the French Army. 
The delegation was greeted at the City Hall by a 
Reception Committee headed by the Mayor and 
Postmaster, where an official reception and wel- 
come was held. A military review was held in 
honor of the delegation at the Presidio. The 
guests of honor were taken thence to the luncheon 
given to them by the Chamber of Commerce and 
the Commercial Club. On entering the banquet 
hall the envoys were given a warm ovation, the 
whole gathering rising and cheering. 

In the course of his address Mr. DeBilly dwelt 
upon the common ideals of France and the United 
States. Speaking of the war he said : 

"We were insufficiently prepared which 
was proof of our peaceful intentions. One- 
eighth of our territory was invaded and 
it contained the best of our iron and 
coal districts. But we obtained coal, cop- 
per and steel from America and Eng- 
land. From the first we always had a 
sufficient quantity of 75 millimeter guns 
but when the war broke out we had only 300 
guns of heavy calibre. Now, in July, we have 
6,000 of these guns. Notwithstanding our 
losses, which I do not attempt to minimize 
France has still three million men under arms 
and reserves to keep this number up to its 
present level for a long time. And now you 
have come to us, fighting your war, but fight- 

[75] 



Lafayette Day in San Francisco 

ing it with us, our aims being in common, our 
ideals the same." 

The Lafayette Day banquet took place in the 
evening under the auspices of the Friends of 
France at the Fairmont Hotel. On the following 
day the delegation was entertained at a luncheon 
given by the San Francisco Women's Centre at 
the Hotel St. Francis under the chairmanship of 
Miss Marion Delaney. The delegation visited 
four of the largest public schools of the city and 
in the evening attended a reception given in their 
honor by the San Francisco Labor Council. 

The main feature of the exercises centered 
about the dedication of the Library of French 
Thought, a gift of the French Government to the 
University of California, where the guests of 
honor were greeted by President Benjamin I. 
Wheeler. The ceremonies at the University had 
been arranged by the Friends of France. Mr. W. 
B. Bourne, president of that organization, and Mr. 
Porter Carnett, its secretary, both made addresses, 
as did also President Benjamin I. Wheeler, Bruce 
Porter, founder of the Friends of France, and 
Professors Henry Morse Stevens, Charles Mills 
Greeley and Charles Chinard. After accepting the 
gift, President Wheeler said: 

" These books speak for the artistic life, 
inspirations of a great people. Imagine what 
Lafayette would have said could he have been 
told that a Library of French Thought would 
have been established on the Pacific coast — 
he for whom the country west of the Mississ- 
ippi Valley was terra incognita." 

This notable two day event has added a stirring 
chapter to the history of San Francisco. 

[76] 



Lafayette Day in Los Angeles 

Los Angeles: The celebration took place at the Expo- 
sition Park. It had been arranged by a Committee 
appointed by Honorable Fred H. T. Woodman, 
Mayor of Los Angeles, the leading members of 
the committee being William A. Spalding, Esq., 
General Charles R. Whipple, U. S. A. Retired, 
Charles R. Fletcher, Professor William H. Knight, 
Edward L. Doheney, Esq., Major George P. Rob- 
inson, Pierson W. Banning and Dr. Hector Alliot. 
Several thousand patriotic citizens of Los Angeles 
gathered to hear the addresses by the Mayor, Mr. 
Spalding, president of the Lafayette Day Com- 
mittee, Mr. Charles R. Fletcher, representing the 
National Committee, who read the message from 
Hon. Henry Van Dyke, Mr. Louis Sentous, Jr 
Consular Agent of France, Mr. E. Monette, presi- 
dent of the Society of the Sons of the Revolution, 
Mrs. Josiah Evans Cowles, president of the Gen- 
eral Federation of Women's Clubs and Hon. Rob- 
ert L. Hubbard. The musical arrangements under 
the direction of Mr. Edward Lebegott included the 
singing of American national anthems and the 
Marseillaise. 

As an interesting outcome of the celebration 
a permanent organization has been founded in 
Los Angeles called the "Lafayette Society' ' 
whose object is to aid in the perpetuation of the 
traditions which bind this country to France, in- 
cluding the adequate observance of Lafayette Day 
Members of the Lafayette Day Committee in 
Los Angeles secured Four million Dollars in sub- 
scriptions to the second Liberty Loan. 

Seattle: A large gathering which included American 

and British soldiers and sailors and a group of 

Spanish war veterans heard the Lafayette Day 

address which was delivered by Judge Thomas 

[77] 



Lafayette Bay in Seattle and New Orleans 

Burke, who aroused great enthusiasm when he 
said: 

'We are again in a conflict, a second war 
for independence and liberty.' 

On behalf of the French residents of Seattle, 
Mr. Marcel Daly delivered a response to Judge 
Burke's address. This was followed by tableaux 
depicting the career of Lafayette arranged by Miss 
Jolivet, supplemented by a sketch of his life read 
by Mrs. Mack. A silk badge worn on the occasion 
of the Lafayette Memorial services held in this 
country in 1834 was sold at auction for the bene- 
fit of the French War Relief. 

New Orleans: Lafayette Day was celebrated at City 
Hall. The ceremonies opened with the singing of 
the Marseillaise by the High School chorus under 
the leadership of Miss Mary Norra and closed with 
the singing of the national anthem. The Mayor of 
New Orleans, Hon. Martin Behrman, greeted the 
Acting Consul General of France, Mr. Emile F. 
Genoyer, who, in responding, dwelt upon the 
brotherhood of arms which again united France 
and the United States in a struggle for liberty. 
The principal address was delivered by Mr. Andre 
Lafargue, a leader of the bar of New Orleans. In 
the course of his address he said: 

'We should all bear in mind that the pres- 
ent world conflict is being carried on to work 
out the salvation of the great democratic insti- 
tutions which Lafayette and Washington 
helped to so firmly establish both on the Euro- 
pean and on the American continents. We are 
waging today the same fight. There is but 
one difference — the magnitude of the conflict. 
In 1776 and in 1798 the struggles that took 
place were in a limited area and as between 

[78] 




[79; 



Lafayette Day in Boston and New Bedford 

the inhabitants of a nation. Today the con- 
flict is a worldwide one. For the democratic 
nations of this world it is a struggle for life or 
death. The struggle that we have entered into 
must be brought to a successful termination, 
and with help of God and through the instru- 
mentality of the boundless resources and in- 
domitable will of this nation we propose to 
see that the ideals and policies that Washing- 
ton and Lafayette labored for and fought for 
are kept intact and inviolate. The very hap- 
piness of the world calls for this.' 

Boston: The celebration took the form of a memorial 
service in St. Paul's Cathedral. On the cathedral 
porch at noon four trumpeters and a vested choir 
of men rendered patriotic hymns including the 
Marseillaise. The French flag was displayed on 
the porch and carried in the procession. The serv- 
ice was attended by the French Consular Agent 
J. C. J. Flamand and representatives of the pa- 
triotic societies of Boston. The address, "The 
Turning of the Tide" was delivered by the Rev. 
Edward M. Sullivan. 

The French High Commission was represented 
by Mr. Francois Monod, who was the guest of 
honor. 

New Bedford: The exercises were held in the High 
School Auditorium which was decorated with 
French, British and American flags. The audience 
was large and enthusiastic. Mayor Ashley pre- 
sided and with him on the platform, besides Mr. 
Monod, were Captain Scott, commandant at Fort 
Rodman, John Morris, the Rev. W. B. Geogeghan, 
Charles F. Archambault and Julius Berkowitz. 
The "Marseillaise" having been played Mayor 
Ashley officially welcomed Mr. Monod on behalf 
of the City. Amid great applause he exclaimed, 

[81] 



Lafayette Day in New Bedford 

referring to the struggles for liberty in the days 
of Lafayette, now renewed: " Should we not today 
bend every effort to assist the people who are now 
fighting the fight we were fighting at that time?" 
The Eev. William B. Geogeghan followed the 
Mayor and spoke inspiringly: "This is the su- 
preme conflict," he said, "between organized ma- 
terialism represented by the central powers, and 
ideality as expressed by the French army and the 
devoted spirit of the French people. The finest 
soldiery of the world are the French soldiers. How 
much they have sacrificed! And now, thank God, 
we have heard the call and in the same spirit in 
which Lafayette came to America, we are going 
across to battle unselfishly, to make the world safe 
for democracy. Let us do all we can to help. Let 
us remember that we are now united forever in one 
great federation, which means to extract the fangs 
from militarism." The Star Spangled Banner, led 
by Miss Irene 'Leary was then sung by the audi- 
ence and after a brief address by Mr. C. F. Arch- 
ambault on behalf of the French residents, Mr. 
Monod was introduced ; he received an ovation and 
delivered a notable address from which the follow- 
ing is taken : 

'By treachery, by dishonor, by the viola- 
tion of Belgian neutrality, the German armies 
had been enabled to invade France. Three 
years ago last week, at the end of August 1914, 
the German armies were rushing forward to 
seize the prize of 43 years of aggressive prep- 
aration. On the first Sunday of September, 
the sound of German guns was audible in 
Paris and the tramp of the barbarians was 
within a few miles of our capital. Not unpre- 
pared, but unavoidably surprised by the vio- 
lation of Belgium, the French armies had 
been, after the hardest battles, retreating for 

[82] 



Lafayette Day in Albany, Baltimore and Washington 

two weeks till they could reach the ground 
appointed for a new stand. To-dav, three 
years ago, they received from Marshal Jofi're 
the orders to resume the attack; on this morn- 
ing of the 6th of September they started the 
offensive of the Marne and began, along the 
whole front, this huge and heroic battle of six- 
days duration in which they broke to peices 
the criminal designs of the enemy.' 

Albany: The Albany schools observed Lafayette Day, 
the arrangements being made by Superintendent 
of Schools C. Edward Jones, at a meeting of the 
principals. The Albany Argus reports that the 
exercises, which consisted in the reading of papers 
and the delivery of addresses impressed the pupils 
with the significance of the "ties which bind this 
country to Lafayette and the French people in the 
present crisis as they did when France was our 
benefactor in the Revolution." 

Baltimore: Exercises were held in all public schools, 
where "the story of Lafayette" a paper specially 
prepared for the Baltimore Committee for the Cele- 
bration of Lafayette Day, of which DeCourcy W. 
Thorn is acting chairman, was read to the students. 
The address was supplied for the purposes of simi- 
lar exercises in all county public schools through- 
out Maryland. 

Washington: The celebration took place under the 
chairmanship of Dr. Joseph G. B. Bulloch, of the 
Order of Washington, and General H. Odin Lake, 
president of the Army and Navy Union. Mr. Al- 
fred B. Dent, acting as secretary and Mr. Daniel 
Smith Gordon, as treasurer. The principal address 
was made by Hon. Jacob E. Meeker, of Missouri, 
member of the House of Representatives. There 
was a large attendance which included the repre- 
[83] 



Lafayette Day in Charleston 

sentatives of the Allied Embassies and armies, a 
number of French officers being present in uniform. 

Charleston: The exercises were arranged by a citizens 
committee headed by H. T. Soubeyroux, Esq., ap- 
pointed by Mayor Hyde, who presided, and were 
participated in by a large audience which repeat- 
edly gave voice to its patriotic fervor. Addresses 
were delivered by Hon. J. P. K. Bryan of the 
Charleston Bar and the Rev. Florian Vurpillot, 
rector of the French Huguenot Church. During 
the exercises Major Gen. W. P. Duvall, U. S. A., 
Commander of the Southeastern Department, with 
headquarters in Charleston, was introduced by 
Major Hyde and spoke briefly. He said that the 
object of all of us now must be to see the war 
through ' ' to a satisfactory end, successful in every 
way, and to sustain the honor and dignity of our 
country." The hall was decorated with the stars 
and stripes and the tricolor and Miss Dufort sang 
the "Marseillaise". 

Mr. Bryan in the course of a stirring oration, 
said: 

'Today, when we send our own sons to 
France, we send them to holy ground, — to the 
fields w T here France fought the fight for free- 
dom for all the world; and they go to urge 
just such a battle as their forefathers waged 
when they stood with Lafayette and con- 
quered and gave to the world a lesson in what 
liberty, equality and fraternity can be.' 

The Rev. Mr. Vurpillot aroused enthusiasm re- 
peatedly, especially when he said: 'The entrance 
of the United States in the war is an assurance 
that the heroes of the Marne did not die in vain.' 

At the conclusion Monsignor P. L. Duffy, pro- 
nounced the benediction. A committee of young 
girls sold tricolor badges for the benefit of the 
Lafayette Fund. 

[84] 



Lafayette Bay in Allentown, Pa., and Saratoga 

AUentown, Pa.: Exercises were held at the United 
States Ambulance Corps Camp at Allentown, 
which were attended by over 1500 persons. There 
was a camp review headed by Capt. 0. K. Keanan 
who served with the French Army at Verdun. The 
Lafayette College Unit carrying a private flag of 
Lafayette and the French and American standards 
was included in the procession. Addresses were 
made by Majors Clarence P. Franklin and H. C. 
Hallett, and a response was delivered by Mr. Fon- 
tenieux, French Consul at Philadelphia, who was 
the guest of honor. 

Saratoga: The session of the annual meeting of the 
American Bar Association which took place on 
Lafayette Day was presided over by Hon. Alton 
B. Parker who presided at the Lafayette Day ex- 
ercises in New York last year, and was addressed 
by Maitre Gaston de Leval, the distinguished Bel- 
gian barrister who defended Edith Cavell. The 
French and British governments were represented 
by General Vignal, French Military Attache, and 
Commodore Guy Gaunt, British Naval Attache, 
both of whom attended the Lafayette Day exer- 
cises at City Hall, New York, last year. Judge 
Parker said: 

'Who can forget the noble reply of the 
Belgian Government to the insolent demands 
and threats of Germany? When has a nation 
sacrificed so much for honor? The story of 
her sufferings has been borne to us upon every 
wind that blows from the Atlantic, until the 
details of outrage committed upon old men, 
upon women, and upon children — of the 
enslavement of her able-bodied and their de- 
portation to Germany to labor for their 
enemies — of her spoliation by fines levied 
upon towns, cities, banks and individuals — of 

[85] 



Lafayette Bay in Saratoga 

the destruction of her ancient and beautiful 
churches and public buildings, sicken our 
hearts. But the time is soon to come when her 
wonderful service to humanity will be the 
theme of the great masters of both prose and 
verse, for she held the German armies in check 
while France and England made ready, with 
her assistance also, to stop them at the Marne. 

'The Battle of the Marne! What a place 
it will have in history, marking as it does, the 
beginning of the end of wars waged for the 
purpose of robbing peoples of their territories 
and making them unwilling subjects of un- 
friendly powers. This day is its anniversary. 
So too, is it the anniversary of the birth of 
General Lafayette which in this country we 
have of late years been widely celebrating. 
This year, under the leadership of our Lafay- 
ette Day National Committee, we are cele- 
brating both anniversaries together and as we 
do so, we rejoice that we are at last to pay our 
debt to France, for Lafayette, Rochambeau 
and the Army and the Navy she sent us when 
we needed them sorely. 

'Is it not wonderful that, one hundred and 
thirty years from the time we secured our 
freedom from England with France's assis- 
tance, more than one hundred of which are 
years of increasing friendliness and confidence 
between all these three nations — evidenced in 
many ways, but in part by an unwatched and 
unguarded boundary, the longest in the world 
— we find Great Britain, France and the Unit- 
ed States side by side in a mighty struggle to 
secure in the future for all the nations in the 
world, great and small, including our own, 
freedom to develop each in its own way and 
without fear of being pounced upon by a larg- 
er nation wishing as I have said to steal her 
territory and make her inhabitants unwilling 
subjects of an unfriendly power. Surely, it 

[86] 



Lafayette Day in Hudson, N. Y. 

is true that i God moves in a Mysterious Way 
his Wonders to Perform.' 

Hudson, N. Y.: Prominent masons from all parts of 
the State were guests of the Lafayette Comman- 
dery, Knights Templar, at a celebration of the 
double anniversary, which happened to be also that 
of the founding of the commandery, in September 
1824 on the occasion of Lafayette's visit to Hud- 
son. A parade opened the ceremonies; a meeting 
was then held in St. John's Hall, followed by a 
Lafayette Day banquet attended by more than 300, 
which was addressed by Charles S. Williams, sup- 
erintendent of the public schools of Hudson; Will- 
iam Graf, a past commander of Lafayette com- 
mandery; the Rev. R. I. Watkins, pastor of the 
First Methodist Episcopal Church of Hudson; 
Charles H. Armitage of Albany, a past comman- 
der; Charles 0. Kuhnert, senior past commander 
of Morton commandery, No. 4 of New York city; 
Randall C. Saunders, commander of Lafayette 
commandery, and Grand Warden George C. Han- 
ford, of Syracuse. Mr. Graf gave a history of 
Lafayette commandery. When General Lafayette 
on his second coming to the United States in 1824, 
visited Hudson to be feted and honored by an 
elaborate demonstration, Mr. Graf said, a group of 
Masons, who were instituting an encampment of 
Knights Templar, enthusiastically appropriated 
the name of the distinguished French patriot and 
instituted what is now Lafayette commandery 
on September 6. In his address on the life of La- 
fayette, Mr. Williams said: 

' The same passion for human rights which 
drove Lafayette to America, is impelling the 
American youth today to take an important 
part in the battle against autocracy. The 

[87] 



Lafayette Day in Irvington, N. Y. } & Wheeling, W. Va. 

American Revolution produced two world citi- 
zens of a distinct and hitherto unknown type, 
Washington and Lafayette. Close friends 
while life lasted, both champions of liberty, 
both loving their fellowmen with a passion 
that precluded and excluded selfish considera- 
tions, their names will ever be linked together 
as the flower of that memorial conflict. 

'We should resolve to dedicate our own 
lives to the perpetuation of that same liberty 
for which Lafayette fought and which today 
is threatened in the cauldron of war by power- 
ful and cruel adversaries, that government of 
the people, by the people and for the people 
shall not perish from the earth.' 

Irvington, N. Y.: The Lafayette Day exercises, held 
in Town Hall, were presided by Mr. R. G. Aber- 
crombie. The main address was delivered by Mr. 
Lawrence Godkin of the New York Committee and 
the Rev. George M. Whitmore; Dr. Carroll Dun- 
ham, Messrs. R. V. Lewis and K. D. Conger also 
spoke. Dr. Finley's poem, "September 6th" 
which appeared in the Outlook last year, was read, 
the "Marsaillaise" and "Star Spangled Banner" 
were sung as also a new song composed especially 
for Lafayette Day, entitled "Along the Brandy- 
wine." 

Wheeling, W. Va.: Lafayette Day was celebrated at 
Wheeling, W. Va. under the auspices of the 
Daughters of the American Revolution. The meet- 
ing was arranged by Mrs. G. A. Bishop, chairman 
and was held in the hall of the Y. W. C. A. which 
had been decorated for the occasion with French 
and American flags. The proceedings were opened 
by the playing of a march composed in 1824 on 
the occasion of Lafayette's visit to this country. 
Addresses were made by Mrs. Charles Flanigan, 

[88] 



Lafayette Day in Wheeling, TV. Va. 

Mrs. Blanche Dunlevy Steamrod and Mrs. John 
B. Garden, regent of the chapter, as also Mrs. 
Charles J. Milton. 

Lafayette Day was observed in many other places 
from which detailed accounts have not yet been re- 
ceived including, Davenport, Iowa; St. Joseph, Mo 
whose Lafayette Day Committee under the chairman- 
ship of V . James L. Davison raised over $250. by the 
sale of color badges for the benefit of the Lafayette 
Fur milar to those sold in New York under the 
shan ^ nship of Mrs. Gertrude Atherton. These 
badges were also a feature of the celebrations at Irv- 
mgton, N. Y., Davenport, Iowa, Charleston, S. C, Los 
Angeles, Cal., and in other cities. Interest in Lafayette 
Day has been evidenced through an increase of contri- 
butions to the Lafayette Fund, which sends Comfort 
Kits to the French soldiers at the front. 



[89] 




[91] 



"LAFAYETTE, HERE WE ARE!" 

A Test of American Sentiment About the War 

{Reprint of an Article by Maurice Leon 
in The Outlook for October 17, 1917) 

The celebration on September 6 of the double an- 
niversary of Lafayette and the Marne, detailed ac- 
counts of which have appeared heretofore in The Out- 
look, served, among other things, to test American 
sentiment about the war. The value of that test will 
be understood when it is borne in mind that within the 
space of two or three days the press throughout the 
country commented editorially on the theme suggested 
by the double anniversary. On the eve of Lafayette 
Day the New York "Tribune" had published an ac- 
count by an American woman living in Paris of Gen- 
eral Pershing's visit to Lafayette's tomb in the Picpus 
Cemetery in Paris. The three words spoken by Gen- 
eral Pershing on that occasion, "Lafayette, nous voila" 
(Lafayette, here we are), quoted by her, spread like 
wildfire through this country. Out of hundreds of ar- 
ticles published on or about Lafayette Day which have 
been collected by the Lafayette Day National Com- 
mittee to be forwarded to France, there are well over 
a hundred editorials, many of which quote General 
Pershing's words as America's message on Lafayette 
Day. No one can read these editorials without realiz- 
ing the existence of an overwhelming American senti- 
ment in favor of a peace founded upon victory in the 
field. 

Judging by its extensive reproduction through the 
country, one of the most noteworthy editorials pub- 
lished on Lafayette Day is the following brief leador 
of the New York "Sun:" 

TO FRANCE 

To-day is the one hundred and sixtieth anni- 
versary of the birth of Lafayette, friend of the 

[93] 



"Lafayette, Here We Are!" 

American colonies. It is the third anniversary 
of the beginning of the battle of the Mame, the 
pivotal conflict of a war still in progress. 

Lafayette, aged nineteen, landed at George- 
town, South Carolina, in the spring of 1777, was 
commissioned a major-general on July 31, and 
was wounded in rallying American troops at the 
Brandywine, September 11. He brought with him 
to these shores companions, money, and powerful 
influence. 

American wealth and resources were placed at 
the service of France in the spring of 1917, and 
American troops landed in France early in the 
summer of 1917. 

France, who sent us a man in our hour of need, 
we shall send you a million men, if wanted, in 
your hour of greatest need. For the millions of 
dollars you sent us we shall send you thousands 
of millions. 

For the victory you won for us at the Mame 
we shall give you a greater victory nearer the 
Ehine. 

General Pershing's words furnished the title and 
keynote of the Xew York "Tribune's" editorial: 

Lafayette, nous voila! There could be no more 
fitting phrase to express the sentiment of the peo- 
ple of the United States, whose sons are now in 
France on Lafayette's birthday. 

The same note is struck in the Xew York "Globe" 
under the heading: "Lafayette, JofTre, Pershing:" 

The real commemoration that gives grip to 
our grasp of the hands of the Frenchmen we re- 
joice with, that gives meaning to our words, that 
steadies our eyes as we look into theirs, is the 
assembling of our armies and our fleets, our camps, 
on the battlefields of France. 

Even the financial press of the metropolis respond- 

[94] 



"Lafayette, Here We Are!" 

ed to the call of Lafayette Day, as witness the follow- 
ing from ' ' Financial America : " 

Out of the heart of that son of France America 
gathered hope, high resolve, victory. 

Out of the gratitude that is strong, that never 
will wither or die in the heart of America, the 
people of the greatest of republics will pour men, 
money, munitions to free France, to repay France, 
to make France know the debt America never can 
repay in full. 

The New York "Times" paid a deserved tribute to 
the men who fought as American volunteers in the Al- 
lied armies : 

All through the war Clancey, of Boston and 
Texas, carried an American flag in his kit, and 
when he heard the news that his country had at 
last come up to join him he brought it out and car- 
ried it '"over the top" at Yiny Ridge and fell 
wounded with it in his hand. The west front is 
dotted with Clancys. They are the men who re- 
turned Lafayette's visit. 

Across the East River the response was full of mar- 
tial fervor. Says the Brooklyn "Citizen:" 

Yes, the war will go on until Germany is 
brought to her knees and made to give up her con- 
quests. She lost the war when her armies failed 
at the Marne, and all her subsequent victories in 
the Balkans and in Russia have brought her no 
nearer to a decision. The decision inevitably will 
have to come on the western front, where the might 
and power of France and Great Britain and our 
own country confront her. 

The sentiment of the up-State papers is not less 
emphatic. Perhaps the briefest, certainly not the least 
significant, is that of the Elmira, New Y r ork, "Adver- 
tiser:" 

[95] 



"Lafayette, Here We Are!" 

Lafayette, here we are! Why say more? In 
that one brief sentence General Pershing symbol- 
ized the attitude of all America. 

The interest aroused by Lafayette Day in Pennsyl- 
vania found its expression in the exercises at Indepen- 
dence Hall, Philadelphia, which were participated in by 
the French Ambassador. The press of the entire State 
gives us the thoughts of the people of Pennsylvania on 
September 6. From these expressions of the public 
thought of the State we select, as typical, four. 

The Philadelphia "Public Ledger:" 

But now the opportunity is ours, and in a 
measure the cry that rang out from American 
throats recently at the tomb of Lafayette in 
France, "Lafayette, nous voila!" is the beginning 
of the repayment. 

The Philadelphia "Record:" 

We are hurrying our troops to France to aid 
in the work of civilization and human freedom by 
rescuing it from the invading ami destroying Ger- 
mans. Here yesterday Ambassador Jusserand, 
who has endeared himself to the American people, 
received an ovation on his arrival to aid in the 
suitable commemoration of the service of Lafay- 
ette, not alone to America, but to mankind. We 
salute our ancient friend and benefactor, the 
French nation. 

The Washington "Reporter:" 

A great chapter is being written in 1917, when 
men from the land of Lafayette have reminded us 
of their early friendship and thousands of Ameri- 
can soldiers are on the soil of France to repay the 
debt created sevenscore years ago. 

The Pittsburgh "Telegraph:" 

France is now our companion in arms, as she 

[96] 



"Lafayette, Here We Are!" 

was nearly a century and a half ago. Our soldiers 
are encamped upon her soil as were French sol- 
diers upon ours in those dark days of the Revolu- 
tion. 

Some of the New England papers take the occasion 
to redefine with clearness the issue between freedom 
and despotism which has again joined France and 
America on the battlefield. Thus the Hartford, Con- 
necticut, "Post," quoting in full the New York 
"Sun's" editorial "To France," adds: 

Let America remember that in sending men 
and money to France she strikes not only for the 
France which struck for us, but strikes for Amer- 
ica as well, for America stands or falls as a free 
state according as the issue now being fought out 
in Europe is decided there. 

To the same effect the Ansonia, Connecticut, "Sen- 
tinel:" 

Those w r ho sin with open eyes must pay. That 
is the lesson of Lafayette Day, and it is a lesson 
that the kindly people of the United States must 
learn by heart in the dark days that are coming. 
Half-way measures with the deadly disease of 
frightfulness are worse than useless. The germ 
of paganism, brutality, and deceit must be eradi- 
cated utterly before the world can be well again. 

By no journal is this issue stated with greater clear- 
ness, by none are the slackers repudiated with more 
passionate indignance than by the Baltimore, Mary- 
land, "Star;" under the title Lafayette and the Pres- 
ent War" it uses these plain words: 

Sacrifice ad suffering gave birth to our great 
Nation, and bloodshed was a necessary adjunct to 
its final accomplishment. In the present crisis the 
same elements are necessary in order to obtain 

[97] 



"Lafayette, Here We Are!" 

the desired results. The slacker, by whatever 
name he desires to be called, has not done his duty, 
and it would appear that the United States is bur- 
dened with more than its share of this class of 
scorpions. They stand in the same position in our 
struggle as did the Tories that harassed Wash- 
ington's army. Whether they are active pro-Ger- 
man sympathizers, pacifists, or militant suffra- 
gists, their temporary influence has the same ef- 
fect. In the light of the golden sunlight democ- 
racy must win and Americans must learn, to its 
fullest extent, the lesson of sacrifice and suffering 
that characterized the United States' stand before 
the nations as "Liberty Enlightening the World." 

Let those who claim that the war is "not popular" 
in the Middle West take note of the following expres- 
sions. 

St. Louis, Missouri, "Democrat:" 

The American soldiers in France preparing to 
aid the French in the world's greatest war in de- 
fense of liberty will bring to the celebration of 
Lafayette's birthday a passionate devotion to his 
memory which will make the French proud to own 
him as a son. 

The St. Louis, Missouri, "Star" sees our present 
as well as our historic debt to France : 

Without Lafayette the history of this country 
would have been changed — less glorious than it is 
we may be sure. Without the battle of the Marne 
and its results we might be fighting Germany on 
our own soil now instead of on foreign soil; or, 
indeed, the fight might well have been over and 
we a subjugated people, for we were in poor fettle 
to make such a fight as we would have been called 
upon to make. 

[98] 



"Lafayette, Here We Are!" 

The Toledo, Ohio, "Bee" shows what we ought to 
do and can do to help pay the double debt : 

It is fitting also that all Americans make re- 
solve that in so far as in them lies they will help 
this country in its task of smashing Germany, 
which wantonly invaded and ruthlessly ravaged 
the homeland of the great Lafayette. 

So also does the Cleveland, Ohio, "Press:" 

In this year of 1917 we are preparing in some 
modicum to pay the immeasurable debt we owe to 
France and to Frenchmen. Even as they helped 
us fight for liberty then, we are preparing to stand 
by their side in the fight for liberty now. 

The Fort Wayne, Indiana, "Gazette:" 

It is very appropriate that the leading metrop- 
olis of this country should have taken notice of 
the birth anniversary of Lafayette with proper 
ceremonies Thursday, for the succor that he 
brought us in the darkest days of our struggle for 
National existence will soon be adequately repaid 
when a million Americans under the Stars and 
Stripes line up beside the compatriots of Lafayette 
in France. 

The Council Bluffs, Iowa, "Nonpareil" speaks vol- 
umes in a dozen words : 

There'll never be a La Follette day to compare 
with Lafayette Day. 

The Omaha, Nebraska, "World-Herald" foresees 
an international Liberty Day in the future: 

And it will be strange if one of the heritages of 
the present world struggle is not a day which all 
the nations engaged in combating the powers of 
darkness will celebrate in common — a day larger, 

[99] 



"Lafayette, Here We Are!" 

it may be, than any national holiday, signifying a 
patriotism that has become extra-national, the 
testimony to a common triumph and a common 
ideal. 

The Waterloo, Iowa, "Courier" seems to be in no 
doubt as to what the war is about: 

Now our soldiers are on the soil of France, as 
Lafayette and his men came to America, and we 
are going to help free France from the grip of the 
invader, and from the menace of autocracy and 
militarism, though in doing so it must not be for- 
gotten that we are fighting our own battle and that 
of all other free peoples. !So the spirit of Lafay- 
ette is alive to-day, and it is inspiring the soldiers 
of France and the soldiers of America in their 
battle side by side against the "natural foe to 
liberty." 

The Milwaukee, Wisconsin, "Journal" is not less 
clear on the subject: 

America did not know when the battle of the 
Marne was fought that its own liberty was at stake, 
but it knows now. It knows also, and should never 
be allowed to forget, the heroic service of the Mar- 
quis de Lafayette at Brandywine, Monmouth and 
Yorktown. 

The Minneapolis, Minnesota, "Tribune" perceived 
without difficulty the solidarity of free nations in the 
present struggle : 

This is a good year and time to express with 
special emphasis American appreciation of and 
gratitude for the distinguished service by Lafay- 
ette and by France in making victory possible for 
the colonists. It will be a good day also to pro- 
claim that old scores with Great Britain are closed 
and that a new book of democratic comradeship 
has been opened in which all liberty-loving peoples 

[100] 



"Lafayette, Here We Are!" 

may enter their pledge to help make the world a 
place of enduring peace, 
plexion of the world. 

The Pacific Coast made itself heard. Its sentiment 
is unmistakably and well expressed by the Los Angeles, 
California, "Express:" 

For nearly a century and a half our speech in 
America has evidenced our gratitude. Now let 
our acts in France attest the sincerity of our 
words. 

Southern appreciation of the meaning of Lafayette 
Day is emphatic. 

The Atlanta, Georgia, "Constitution" (by James 
A. Hollomon) : 

From the White House, Tuesday, President 
Wilson referred to the new selectman as the "sol- 
dier of freedom." It is a coincidence that this 
new soldier of freedom should be born into mili- 
tary life on the anniversary of the birth of one 
whose spirit of democracy is so firmly fixed in 
every American institution, and that side by side 
with the soldiers of Lafayette's native and be- 
loved France they shall fight for the perpetuation 
of the same institutions that Lafayette, the man, 

The voice of the Northwest was heard on Lafayette 
Day, whose message the Seattle, Washington, "Times" 
translated thus: 

In part, Americans can repay that debt by 
honoring the name and memory of Lafayette next 
Thursday. In greater measure they can repay by 
sustaining the Government in all its efforts to 
beat down the foe who menaces democracy in 
France. 

The Salt Lake, Utah, "Tribune:" 

At no time since the Revolution have France 

[101] 



"Lafayette, Here We Are!" 

and the United States been in closer contact or in 
greater harmony, and in 1776, as in 1917, they were 
working for the freedom of mankind, although at 
that time no one could have predicted the immense 
influence the erection of a new republic on this side 
of the Atlantic would have on the political coin- 
helped establish in sensational victories that 
marked his path from Yarmouth to Yorktown. 

The Columbia, South Carolina, ''Record:" 

This year, therefore, in the name and for the 
sake of the soldiers that we are sending across 
the sea, let us commemmorate the name and the 
fame of Lafayette, and, above all, the generous 
and exalted principles for which he fought and 
of which his name is significant. 

Charleston, South Carolina, which held a beautiful 
celebration on Lafayette Day, spoke through her press 
with fervent enthusiasm. The following is from the 
Charleston "News and Courier:" 

For us to-day a new significance surrounds the 
name of Lafayette. He was a champion of those 
same principles of freedom for which America has 
now drawn the sword; and he came to us in the 
moment of our great need from France — from this 
same glorious, effulgent France by whose side we 
now stand in another fight for freedom. 

General Pershing's words were not alone America's 
message to France ; they were also a clarion call heard 
throughout America. The response of the country to 
the commander of the American expeditionary forces 
in France is summarized in these words spoken by Mr. 
John Quinn, a member of the New York bar, American 
born, but of distinguished Irish ancestry, at the La- 
fayette Monument in Union Square on the morning of 
September 6: 

[102] 



"Lafayette, Here We Are!" 

General Pershing a few days ago, at the tomb 
of Lafayette, in France, spoke these stirring 
words: "Lafayette, nous voila" (Lafayette, we 
are here). To that I add these words, "Lafay- 
ette, we are sending more and yet more of our 
bravest and our best to France. They are com- 
ing, coming — a million strong 1" 



[103] 



LAFAYETTE DAY AND THE PEE^S 



Among the articles devoted to Lafayette Day 1917 
are those which appeared in the following publications, 
clippings of which are being forwarded to the French 
Government through its Ambassador here, in a book 
prescribed on behalf of the Lafayette Day National 
Committee and the Lafayette Day Citizens' Committee 
of New York: 



Alabama: 

Birmingham News 
Mobile Register 

Arizona: 

Tucson Star 
Yuma Sun 

Arkansas: 

Hot Springs Sentinel Record 
Little Rock Gazette 
Pine Bluff Graphic 

California: 

Bakersfield Echo 
Eureka Times 
Los Angeles Examiner 
" " Express 

" " Evening Herald 

Times 
" " Tribune 

Sacramento Bee 

Union 
San Diego Tribune 
" " L'nion 

San Francisco Bulletin 

Call 
" " Chronicle 

" " Examiner 

Woodland Democrat 

Colorado: 

Colorado Springs Gazette 
Denver Post 

Connecticut: 

Ansonia Sentinel 
Bridgeport American 
Farmer 
Telegram 



Bristol Press 
Hartford Courant 
Post 
Times 
Meriden Journal 
Record 
Middletown Press 
Xaugatauk News 
New Britain Herald 
New Haven Courrier 

Times-Leader 
New London Telegraph 
Norwich Courier 
Waterbury Democrat 
Republican 
YVinsted Herald 
Leader 

Delaware: 

Wilmington Every Evening 
Journal 
News 

District of Columbia: 
Washington Herald 
Post 
Star 
Times 

Florida: 

Jacksonville Times 
Key West Journal 
Tampa Tribune 

Georgia: 

Atlanta Constitution 
Augusta Chronicle 

Illinois: 

Bloomington Daily Bulletin 

[104] 



Lafayette Day and the Press 



Chicago Examiner 
Herald 
Journal 
News 
Post 
Tribune 
Jacksonville Journal 
Kankakee Republican 
Quincy Herald 
Journal 
Pekin Times 
Peoria Journal 

Transcript 

Indiana: 
Anderson Bulletin 

Herald 
Evansville Courrier 

" Journal-News 

Fort Wayne Gazette 
" " Sentinel 

Gosher News-Times 
Indianapolis Star 
Richmond Palladium 
South Bend News-Times 
Terre Haute Star 
Washington Herald 

Iowa: 

Council Bluffs Nonpareil 
Marshalltown Republican 
Mason City Globe-Gazette 
Sioux City Journal 
Waterloo Courier 

Kansas: 

Salina Journal 
Wichita Eagle 

Kentucky: 

Henderson Journal 
Louisville Herald 
limes 

Louisiana: 

New Orleans States 

cl " ~ Times Pl 'cayune 

Shreveport Times 

Maine: 
Augusta Journal 
Bangor Commercial 

News 
Lewiston Journal 



Portland Argus 
Express 
Press 



Maryland: 

Baltimore American 
News 
Star 
Sun 
Cumberland Alleganian 
Times 

Massachusetts: 
Boston Advertiser 
American 
Daily Globe 
Eve. " 
Herald 

;; Post 

Record 
Transcript 
Traveler 
Brockton Enterprise 

" Times 
Clinton Item 
Fall River Eve. News 

" Herald 
Haverhill Gazette 
Holyoke Telegram 
Transcript 
Lowell Eve. Citizen 
Morn'g " 
Sun 
Lynn Item 

Telegram 
New Bedford Mercury 

I imes 
„ . " Standard 
Springfield Eve. Union 

Union 
Worcester Gazette 
Post 
Telegram 

Michigan: 

Calumet News 
Detroit Free Press 
Journal 
" Times 
Flint Journal 
Jackson Press 
Marquette Chronicle 
Menominee Leader 
Muskegan Chronicle 



[105] 



Lafayette Day and the Press 



Minnesota: 

Albert Lea Tribune 
Duluth Herald 
Maukato Free Press 
Minneapolis journal 
Tribune 
Northfield News 
Rochester Record 
St. Paul Dispatch 
" " Pioneer-Press 

Mississippi: 
Meridan Star 

Missouri: 

Kansas City Globe 
" Journal 
" Star 
St. Joseph Gazette 
" " News-Press 
" " Observer 
St. Louis Democrat 
" " Post Dispatch 
" Star 
" Times 

Montana: 

Anaconda Standard 
Helena Independent 
Missoula Missoulian 

Nebraska: 
Omaha World-Herald 

Nevada: 
Reno Gazette 
" Journal 

New Hampshire: 
Manchester Leader 

New Jersey: 

Atlantic City Press 
Bayonne Review 
Camden Telegram 
Hoboken Observer 
Jersey City Journal 
Newark Evening Star 

" News 
Passaic " 

Herald 
Patterson Guardian 

" News 

Trenton Gazette 



New Mexico: 

Albuquerque Journal 
East Los Vegos Optic 

New York: 

Albany Argus 
" Journal 
" Knickerbocker 
Auburn Citizen 
Brooklyn Citizen 

Daily Eagle 
Standard Union 
Times 
Buffalo Commercial 
Courrier 
Evening Times 
" News 
Elmira Advertiser 
Jamestown Post 
Kingston Express 

Leader 
Long Island City Star 
New York City American 
" Call 
" " " Commercial 
" " " Evening Sun 

World 
" " " Financial Amer. 

" Globe 
" " Harlem Home News 
" " " Jour, of Com. 
" Journal 
" Mail 
" Post 

' Sun 

" Telegram 
" " " Times 
" Tribune 
" World 
Oswego Pattadium 
Rochester Chronicle 

Post Express 
Schenectady Gazette 
Syracuse Herald 

" Post Standard 
Troy Evening Record 

" Times 
Utica Herald Dispatch 

" Observer 
Watertown Times 
Yonkers Statesman 

North Carolina: 

Charlotte Democrat 
" Observer 

Greenville Reflector 



[106] 



Lafayette Day and the Press 



Ohio: 

Akron Times 
Bucyrus Forum 
Bellefontaine Index 
Cincinnati Enquirer 

Post 

Star 

Tribune 
Cleveland News 

Press 
Columbus Citizen 

Despatch 

State Journal 
Coshockton Times-Age 
Dayton News 
Hamilton 
Lima " 

Marietta Journal 
Massillon Evening Independent 
Newark American-Tribune 

" Advocate 
Springfield Sun 
Toledo Bee 

Blade 
Youngstown Telegram 
Vindicator 

Oklahoma: 

Guthrie Leader 

Oklahoma City Oklahoman 

Oregon: 

Pendleton Oregonian 
Portland 

Pennsylvania: 

Allentown Leader 

Democrat 
Chambersburg Spirit 
Chester Republican 
Easton Free Press 
Erie Herald 

Greensburg News Record 
Hazelton Standard 
Harrisburg Patriot 
Norristown Times 
Philadelphia Evening Ledger 

" North American 

" Press 

" Public Ledger 

Record 

" Telegraph 

Pittsburgh Despatch 

" Gazette Times 

Ledger 
Post 

" Telegraph 



Pottsville Republic 
Washington Reporter 
Westchester News 
Wilkesbarre Independent 

Record 
York Daily 

" Despatch 

" Gazette 

Rhode Island: 

Newport News 
Providence Bulletin 

Evening News 

Journal 

Tribune 

South Carolina: 

Charleston American 

Evening Post 
News-Courrier 

Columbia Record 

Greenville News 

Spartanburg Journal 

South Dakota: 

Aberdeen News 
Gupon Spirit 
Madison Leader 

Tennessee: 

Chattanooga News 
Knoxville Sentinel 
Memphis Appeal 
Scimitor 

Texas: 

Galveston News 
Greenville Herald 
Jefferson Jimpl'cte 
Fort Worth Record 
Waco Times-Herald 

Utah: 

Salt Lake City News 
" " " Republican 
" Tribune 

Vermont: 

Burlington Free Press 

News 
Barre Times 

Montpelier Evening Argus 
Rutland Herald 

Virginia : 

Danville Register 



[107] 



Lafayette Day and the Press 



Newport News Herald 

" Press 
Norfolk Dispatch 

" Virginian Pilot 
Richmond Journal 
" Leader 

" Times Dispatch 

" Virginian 

Washington: 

Seattle Intelligencer 

Times 
Spokane Review 

W. Virginia: 

Bluefield Telegraph 



Clarksburg Exponent 
Telegraph 
Grafton Sentinel 
Morgantown New Dom. 
Wheeling Intelligencer 

" News 

" Register 

Wisconsin: 

La Crosse Tribune 
Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin 
Journal 

Wyoming: 

Cheyenne Tribune 



[108] 



The national Lafayette Day Committee take an especial pleasure in 
availing of this opportunity to thank Mr. Maurice Leon for his 
unremitting interest and care to which are attributable both the 
originating of and the steady growth of public .interest in the 
due celebration in this country of the birthday of .the friend of 
Conatitutional Liberty and of America and' the Anniversary of the 
oonfliot which has determined that that Liberty should continue to 
prevail and spread through the world:-the decisive Battle of the 
Marne. Mr. Leon '3 determination that the day should be marked in 
this country: -which owes so much to the Fran 00- American Hero and 
no less to the intrepid legions who contended for the right on the 
plains of Franoe on September 6th, 1914;- and hi3 subsequent ef- 
forts in that regard have in our opinion aided distinctly in re- 
viving, in revivifying and in broadening the kindly sympathetic 
and friendly relations between the twp lands and we feel, in ten- 
dering hi" our. thanks for a zeal and a discretion which have ao 
happily resulted, that we are bearing testimony to a well deserved 
gratitude on our part towards him and, if the country will permit 
us in this respeot to speak for it, on its part also. 

^--—"September 7th, 1917. , ^-> 







•^+,rs. 




£^>S 






[109] 



20 »y 



•* o 






1'. 







• K o ' . ^ 

n <& .**%?/£• ^. A + *Y 







t <2v 




















4^ 









ife W r' 









•<"\ 




4? <s 






t0 4 




**ap//?%» 






4 o 









^Wa* ^ ** 













G Y 



» * o* "%> 









» / 1 



,: ^ 



>*** /Jill*' ^ d^ •' 




». %i* v :. 



-W*>* V--"-> <,'*??*>* V"-''> 

^ .AtffcX x-^fe.x. y^.* y, : : 



«4°x 



* ^ 






/ v^v. v^v v^v \ 






^O ** 6 ° " • «• <^ 



^9* 







^ v 
















^ .°j^** ^ rP v .»i fc ^L% "°o ^ .°.«*:i* ~* 







v "••«♦' 















: ' '. .' 



' ■ ;" : ■'■.— ■.■ 






